Seven Days
by Rheassa
Summary: Inspired by Rihito Takarai's manga 7 DAYS. Picture not mine. High-school AU. Marco is known for dating people for a week, starting on Monday only to dump them on Sunday. What happens when a fast and food-loving kouhai runs him over first thing on Monday at school? Marco x Ace
1. Monday (Part 1)

**Hi guys! **

**I think I've been dormant long enough, so here's the story I decided to come back with. Probably because it's the only one I'm somewhat sure of finishing.**

**By the way, its a shounen-ai fanfic, just in case.**

**Disclaimer: all the characters are owned by Eichiro Oda, I'm just using them for my own entertainment. And the plot belongs to Rihito Takarai, whose cutest manga 7 DAYS inspired the whole thing.**

* * *

Ace was bored. They had a self-study period, but he just couldn't concentrate on the math in front of him. Especially on a day as nice as this one. He stared out the window, chewing on his pencil absent-mindedly. The sun was shining and there was a light breeze, judging by the movement of leaves on the trees in the school yard. It was end of September, so it was still warm outside, but the leaves were already touched by the colours of autumn, gold mixing with green.

Ace looked down and noticed a couple of girls outside, looking up at him, as he was on the second floor. He waved at them, giving one of his trade-mark smiles. The girls giggled and waved back at him, disappearing, as they went into the building. Ace sighed and wished he was hit by one of his sleep attacks. At least, that would be a reason legitimate enough to skip class. He yawned, in hope that he'll fall asleep because of that. Yeah, he was that naïve. Suddenly, somebody hit him on the back of his head.

"Ouch! That hurt, you bastard!" Ace turned around, ready to fight, as he saw his friend Nami. She was in the same class as him, a fiery red-head, who was extremely popular with boys. There even was a theory about her being a model, but Ace was sure that they were just misguided by her long red hair and her voluptuous bosom. After all, he knew better, even if modelling was easy money, Nami didn't have time for that, if she wanted to enter the prestige Red Line University. "What was that for, Nami?"

"Ace, you idiot… You should stop smiling like that."

"Why? What's wrong with my smile?" Ace fished his mobile out of his pocket and stared at the black screen, He flashed a smile at himself and looked at it sceptically.

"Haa…" Nami sighed. "Are you pretending to be the idiot we both know you aren't?"

"What?" Ace asked, completely confused.

"I can't believe how oblivious you are… You really have no clue?"

"About what?"

"That's why you can't keep a girlfriend. Because of your oblivious attitude and your 'killer smile'."

"Whaddya mean by that?" Ace frowned.

"Vivi said you two broke up."

"Yeah, why?"

"That's my question, what did she say to you?"

"That I was a nice person, but I'm nice to everyone. I don't see how that's a problem, though…"

"Ace, you idiot…" Nami sighed. "What am I going to do with you?"

"Whaddya mean by that?" Ace repeated, confused.

"Can you at least act a little sad?"

"Why should I do that?"

"You are hopeless." Nami shook her head. "You need help with that?" she pointed towards Ace's math book.

"Nah, it's not difficult, it's just boring. Thanks anyway." Ace flashed one of his smiles.

"Didn't I tell you to stop smiling?" Nami hit Ace on the head again.

"I can't help it, I'll smile if I feel like smiling!"

"Anyways, do you have club activities after school?" Nami asked, moving Ace's math book and planting her bottom on his desk, earning Ace quite a few jealous glances from his male classmates. Ace leaned back in his chair, so he would be able to see Nami's face. Sure, her figure was nice, but Ace found her personality more interesting than her curves.

"Yeah, why? Going on a date with Luffy and want my permission?"

"Why would I want your permission?" Nami asked, blushing a little. Luffy was Ace's younger brother, who was in a grade below him and somehow convinced Nami to be his girlfriend. To say that the fact that a goofy kid, who always wore his old straw hat, got Nami as his girlfriend left three quarters of male population of their school in tears was an understatement. Nami's personal fan-club was in mourning for a month, to say the least. "I was just wondering. What were you taking again, judo?"

"Yeah," Ace nodded.

"Ace, you wanna get some food?" asked Law, one of Ace's classmates, as well as one of Ace's closer friends.

"Sure," Ace was always hungry and everybody knew that.

"Good, Usopp is supposed to be here soon, you can go to the gate. Here's our money," Law gave Ace some bills. "Don't forget your own money."

"Did you order one for me?" Ace looked up at Law with puppy eyes.

"More like two, get going and don't forget your wallet," Law rolled his eyes at Ace's excited face.

Ace jumped up and checked his pockets. When he didn't find his wallet there, he snatched his bag and rummaged through it until he found his wallet. Leaving a mess behind him, he ran to the gate, skipping several steps at once on the stairs. If there was anything in the world that could get Ace's undivided attention, it would be food. Ace was also blessed with a gift of eating as much as he wanted and not gaining weight, which made Nami mad for obvious reasons. The same went for Ace's brother Luffy, who was even worse than Ace – it was like Luffy was made of rubber, judging by the amount of food he could eat in one meal.

Ace almost rolled down the last flight of stairs and tumbled out to the school yard. He smiled, apologetically, at the couple of girls, who he almost squashed into the wall when he almost fell down the stairs and sped away to the school gate. Ace's classmates had already learned one very important rule – 'don't stand between Ace and the food', but, apparently, not everyone at school knew that yet. That could explain why he collided with some guy fifty metres from the gate.

The force of the collision threw them to the ground, but Ace quickly rolled over, getting back to his feet. He didn't even look at the unfortunate guy, as he said 'sorry', because he spotted the pizza delivery man by the gate. Ace had to run into the wall to not to collide with the delivery man as well.

"Hi, Usopp!" Ace breathed out, smiling widely. Usopp was one of Luffy's friends, who happened to work part-time at a pizzeria. He had a lot of black curly hair and one very long nose and, what's more important, let Ace eat pizza and pay for it later.

"That looked painful, is that poor guy okay?" Usopp asked, as he looked behind Ace.

"More importantly, give me food," Ace was hopping in place in excitement.

"Fine," Usopp shoved around ten pizza cartons in Ace's hands.

"Money's in my back pocket," Ace turned his back to Usopp, trusting him to get the money. He felt Usopp check his pockets, all four of them for some reason, both back and front.

"There's no money," Usopp frowned.

"No way! Law gave me money, plus I had my wallet with me!" Ace exclaimed, clutching pizza cartons.

"I believe this is yours?" said somebody over Ace's left shoulder, placing his wallet and money from his classmates on the cartons.

"Wow, thanks, man!" Ace smiled widely at his saviour, his attention turning back to Usopp in an instant. "There, didn't I say I had money with me?"

Usopp looked at the guy behind Ace with pity.

"That looked really painful, are you alright?"

"Could have been worse," the guy chuckled. "Do you need a hand with those?"

Ace clutched the cartons even harder, not willing to let them go. He had enough experience to not to trust strangers with his food. Meanwhile, Usopp took the money needed and put Ace's wallet in Ace's back pocket.

"See you around, Ace," Usopp waved his hand, as he went back to his bicycle.

"Yeah, see ya!" Ace nodded and turned around, only to walk into the guy standing behind him.

"Are you sure you don't need help with those?" the guy asked again.

Ace shot an annoyed glare at him and stared. Oh, no he didn't! Ace's face fell a little, when he saw, who that was – steaming hot blond with a bored expression and piercing blue eyes… He was dead, for sure.

"Marco-sempai, I'm so sorry!" Ace made an attempt to bow, but it was either that or pizza, so Ace made the obvious choice – the food.

Marco was the captain of their judo team and was on top of the 'Most Wanted' list. It was a list, which included most popular people at school, boys and girls alike. It was updated every month and Ace was surprised to find himself there too, in top ten, which baffled him. It's needless to say, who was number one – Phoenix Marco.

Marco was an odd one, in Ace's opinion. He would date the person, who'd ask him first on Monday, only to dump them on Sunday. Given, that today was a Monday, Ace was pretty sure that Marco already had a girlfriend or a boyfriend for the week, Marco didn't hide that he swung both ways.

"Please don't tell me it was you I ran over, on my way here…" Ace stared at Marco, scared stiff – Marco could easily turn him into a pretzel.

"It's fine, it was my own fault for spacing out like that," Marco gave Ace a little smile and Ace could exhale. "But you sure are fast, why aren't you on the track and field team?"

"Because nobody could promise me they would wait with food on the finish line," Ace smiled widely.

"Right, food," Marco chuckled, as he turned to go to school, followed by Ace, who felt as if a thunderstorm passed him by.

"Who are you dating this week?" Ace asked, just to disturb the awkward silence between them.

"Nobody yet, I was at the dentist's all morning," Marco shrugged casually. "I have to say, dentists are sadists, at least mine is."

"Is that so?" Ace chuckled, grateful to the fact that he didn't have to go to the dentist anytime soon. Obeying his sudden impulse, Ace asked: "Would you go out with me, sempai?"

"I can't see why not," Marco smiled at Ace. "I'll see you at the dojo."

Marco waved his hand as he went in another direction. Ace stood there, completely baffled. Did he just ask Marco-sempai out? Why did he do that? They were both men and, even if it wasn't a problem for sempai, Ace sure as hell didn't swing that way, or did he? If he didn't, then why did he ask sempai out? Everything was so confusing, he needed to eat.

Ace got back to the classroom and was instantly swarmed by his classmates, who waited for their pizzas impatiently. Ace got two pepperoni pizzas, he really didn't care which one he would get. He went to his desk and pushed Nami off of it, as she was still sitting there. She didn't mind that and took the seat in front of Ace.

"Who was that poor guy, who was run over by you?" she asked, not even looking at pizza – it had way too many calories.

"Ah, that was Marco-sempai," Ace said with his mouth full.

"Hahaha!" Nami laughed. "Really?"

"Mff…" Ace nodded.

"That must have hurt…" Nami shook her head. "Still, it's his own fault, he should have known better."

"Mff…" Ace shrugged, his thoughts going back to the fact that he was the one Marco will be dating this week. Why the hell did he ask Marco out? It didn't make any sense at all… Of course, Marco was a cool guy, good looking too, but wtf? Ace was dead sure that he wasn't into guys. He swallowed his pizza angrily and opened the second box.

"What's wrong with you?" Nami asked, frowning.

"Mff?" Ace glared at her.

"You know I won't take your food, so why are you in such foul mood? You were all sunshine and kittens when you left, now it's like dark and twisty."

"I'm going to get my ass kicked, that's what," Ace growled, inhaling the second pizza in a matter of seconds.

"Ah, right, you did ran your judo captain over..." Nami smiled a little. "I hope you'll live to tell the tale, because Luffy will be sad, if you die."

"You and I both," Ace took the paper napkin Nami offered and wiped his face clean.

Ace was sure that he would get his ass handed to him later today. Marc couldn't have taken him seriously, could he? Ace sighed, as he went to throw away the cartons. Why the hell did he do that?! He knew he wasn't the brightest bulb in the bunch, but this was a new level of stupidity even for him.

(^_^)

Marco walked into the school territory after spending the whole morning at the dentist's. That old hag was a monster sadist, he had no idea whatsoever, why the hell Pops listed her as their family dentist. He silently promised that this would be the last time that he went to her, he was old enough to choose his own dentist.

The weather was really nice, so Marco was taking his time, walking slowly to his wing of school. He stopped and lifted his face to feel the sun and the light breeze. Marco closed his eyes and took a slow breath. He smiled, opened his eyes and took a step forward, only to be thrown to the ground, as something collided with him. Scratch that, someone. That someone didn't even react to collision, just rolled over and kept on running as if his life depended on it. Marco heard the hastily muttered 'sorry', as the boy sped away, only to collide with the wall, close to the school gate in a couple of seconds.

Marco got to his feet and dusted himself off; years of training paid off, since he didn't hurt himself. As he leaned down to get his bag, he noticed a wallet, which was, most definitely, not his. Marco looked at the boy who ran him over, to see like ten pizza boxes in his hands. Marco walked over to him, as he watched the pizza delivery guy check the pockets. He came over in time to hear the boy exclaim:

"No way! Law gave me money, plus I had my wallet with me!"

"I believe this is yours?" Marco said, placing the wallet on top of the pizza boxes.

"Wow, thanks, man!" the boy, who ran Marco over, smiled widely at the blond, making the latter wish for a pair of sunglasses – that smile positively blinded him.

"That looked really painful, are you alright?" the pizza guy asked, looking concerned. Well, if it was anybody but Marco, they would have needed an ambulance.

"Could have been worse," Marco chuckled, as he eyed the pizza boxes. It sure looked uncomfortable, so he asked: "Do you need a hand with those?"

The boy clutched the pizza boxes as if Marco was trying to steal them from him. It looked really funny, the boy looked like a cat, protecting its food. As the pizza guy said goodbye and left, Marco decided to try again:

"Are you sure you don't need help with those?" that earned him a glare from the boy. As the boy turned around, Marco could finally see his face. It looked oddly familiar, but, on the other hand, the whole school looked oddly familiar to Marco – he was really bad at remembering people, faces and names alike. The boy had black hair, parted in the middle, so that long bangs wouldn't get in the eyes. The eyes were silvery grey, which was a first for Marco – he had never seen that kind of eye colour before. To top everything, there were freckles, scattered all over the cheeks and nose, making him look younger than he was.

The boy paled, as he saw, who he was glaring at. His silver eyes widened a lot, as colour drained from his face. Judging by such a reaction, Marco placed the boy in his judo club. Otherwise, the reaction would have been a red face, not a scared look, as if Marco was going to dismember him.

"Marco-sempai, I'm so sorry!" that confirmed Marco's guess, the boy was in his club for sure. He couldn't help but smile, as the boy tried to bow, but almost lost his pizza boxes, so he stopped, shrinking a little. Then the realization hit him: "Please don't tell me it was you I ran over, on my way here…"

"It's fine, it was my own fault for spacing out like that," Marco tried not to laugh at the reaction, but a smile still found its way on his face. The boy relaxed a little, when he saw the smile, so Marco tried to establish some contact. "But you sure are fast, why aren't you on the track and field team?"

The answer did Marco in – he chuckled, trying not to laugh out loud. He looked at pizza boxes in the boy's hands and smiled wider.

"Right, food," Marco was laughing inside, thinking that if the boy had somebody with food, waiting for him on the finish line, he would beat all and every record. He should really think about the possibility of offering food to the boy, to see what he could do in the dojo.

"Who are you dating this week?" the boy asked, bringing Marco back to earth, as he was thinking of what kind of food should he use as a bait.

"Nobody yet, I was at the dentist's all morning," Marco shuddered at the memory, he was not going back there anytime soon, even if his life depended on it. "I have to say, dentists are sadists, at least mine is."

"Is that so?" the boy said thoughtfully. Next question caught Marco somewhat off guard. "Would you go out with me, sempai?"

Marco blinked, but quickly composed himself.

"I can't see why not," he gave the boy a smile and waved his hand, walking in opposite direction. "I'll see you at the dojo."

Marco went to his classroom, thinking. To everyone else, this it looked like a game, but it never was one. A week was not long enough to get to know a person, but it was long enough to fall in love. Marco may have been a hopeless romantic for believing in love, but still, he did. It was never a game for him, he was serious every single week… Marco sighed, as he shook his head – why was he still hopeful at the beginning of each week, he couldn't understand. He stopped, as something on the board of notice caught his attention.

It was the 'Most Wanted' list. He looked at it intently. There was he, in the first place for the nth time in a row. The second place was taken by the kendo captain, Roronoa Zoro. Marco knew the guy pretty well, he was a beast when it came to fighting. The third was some red head called Mikan Nami. She looked familiar, maybe because he dated her for one week last year. The fourth was Nico Robin, his classmate and friend, she was the only one, who didn't consider Marco's daring a game; she was also one of those he dated first. Fifth was Black Sanji, Marco knew him only because he was Zoro's boyfriend. He was one of the few who knew, not even the short info provided on each person mentioned that, to the whole school they were single.

Finally, Marco saw what got his attention. Number six. The small picture met him with a familiar blinding smile and freckles all over the cheeks. Portgas D. Ace, second year, part of the judo team. Just as Marco guessed. However, nothing ever mentioned his obsession with food or how fast the guy was. Apparently, he was brother to Monkey D. Luffy, who was in the first year and, for whatever reason, number ten on the 'Most Wanted' list. Marco looked at that kid, who was smiling broadly at the camera, holding his straw hat in place. According to the information, that goofy kid was dating the girl, who was ranked number three. That was baffling, to say the least.

Marco sighed again, at least he got to know who he was dating this time - otherwise it would have been really embarrassing. He walked slowly to his classroom, not in a need to hurry. Halfway to his classroom he met Robin, who was coming back from the bathroom. She nodded at him and took out her notebook, the one she always had with her, no matter what. She scribbled something quickly and in one swift motion, she stuck, whatever she wrote, to his forehead. Marco raised his eyebrows, as he removed what turned out to be a sticker, not unlike those people use on Christmas presents. On the sticker was written in Robin's nice handwriting 'Taken'.

Marco chuckled, as he stuck the sticker onto his blazer, which was part of the school uniform.

"How do you always know?" he asked with a smile.

"You are easy to read, once people get to know you," Robin smiled one of her mysterious smiles.

"Then it's a good thing that there aren't many people, who know me," Marco bowed his head a little.

"If you say so," Robin bowed her head as well. She never asked, who was Marco dating – she figured it out herself in a matter of two days. She knew that it was hopeless to ask Marco – he never told anyone, it was always the person who he dated that spilled the beans. That was one of the reasons why Marco liked having Robin as a friend – you never needed to say anything to her, she knew it already.

"Yeah…" Marco said, as they walked into the classroom – they had a self-study period, as it seemed. He could not help but feel a little bit hopeful – maybe this time would be different.

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**That would be chapter one. Please tell me what you thought of it and, just in case, english is not my mother tongue. Next chapter will probably be posted some time next week, but I make no promises.**

**Cya,**

**Rhe.**

**PS. Looking for a beta (thought this is faster then look over all of them). PM if interested.**


	2. Monday (Part 2)

**Hi again!  
****Yeah, I'm keeping my promise here :)  
Lines in bold in the story are either sms or fb.  
****Disclaimer: not mine... Eichiro Oda and Rihito Takarai****  
**

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Marco sat down behind his desk and took out his books. Next period was English, so he better look through his textbook, just in case. Marco opened the book on the page he needed and stared at it, not seeing anything written there. After five minutes of blank staring, he sighed and took out his phone. He logged in on facebook and opened the search engine. Slightly unsure, Marco typed Portgas. This wasn't fair towards the guy, but Marco had to at least know, who he will be dating.

He raised his eyebrows at the fact that Portgas D. Ace in his friend list. On the other hand, he had no idea who else he had as a friend on facebook. The entire school for sure. Marco only accepted friend requests if he and the person asking had at least a couple mutual friends. Marco looked up Ace's profile, to be greeted by a group photo. There was Ace, in the middle of a group, where everybody had arms around the shoulders of the person next to them. To Ace's right was the red-head, number three in the list, to his left was his little brother. The red head was hugging a boy, who looked as if he slept at least a month ago and that boy had his arm around a small boy with messy brown hair and big brown eyes. Ace's brother hugged Zoro, who had Sanji close to him.

That surprised Marco, he didn't expect Ace to know Zoro and Sanji, much less to be on hugging terms with the good looking red head. Marco turned his attention to the profile picture. Ace's profile picture was an unexpected one, to say the least. He was sitting in a flower field, having a wreath of flowers on his head and a bunch of them in his arms. The flowers were probably from the very field Ace was sitting in, since they were the same colour. Ace had an orange t-shirt on him and a bright orange hat, hanging on his back. He smiled brightly at the camera, the smile being warm and happy.

Marco pressed on the photo, to see the comments. There was a text, written by Ace, when he uploaded the photo: '**Thanks Luffy and Sabo for the flowers! We should go hiking more often.**' Marco looked at the first comment, made by, apparently the very same Sabo, who was mentioned. '**Don't you look like a princess XD yeah, sure, I'll give you a call when I can… Mariejois is killing me…**' The next comment was from Luffy '**I liked the wolves best :D'** to which Ace responded by **'You idiot, we almost became a dinner!'**

The comments turned into an all-out argument between the three boys with some comments from other people here and there, all calling Ace either a princess, a pretty boy or, the weirdest part, the sleeping beauty. Just in case, Marco looked at the picture, but Ace was awake there. Given that the number of people who called Ace a sleeping beauty was large, Marco assumed it to be an inside joke. He went back to the profile page, only to see that while he was looking at the comments, there was a status update from Ace: '**When the hell will I need to use the limit of a sequence in real life?!**' Marco raised an eyebrow at that – he had no idea that Ace was in an advanced math class. On the other hand, he didn't even know the boy's name half an hour ago.

The status update already had a comment, made by that Sabo, who, apparently, was Ace's close friend. '**Just don't. Otherwise I'll start bitching about my school and u don't want that XD**'. To that, Ace replied '**U had a choice, so stop bitching about it XD So not my fault u chose Mariejois over Enies Lobby :D**'. Marco's eyebrows rose, as he stared at that comment. Mariejois High was practically the best one in the country, those who graduated from Mariejois could get into whatever university they wanted. Enies Lobby High was also a good one, ranked in top ten, but if Marco could choose, he'd go to Mariejois. To be able to do that, you needed A LOT of money or to be a genius. The only reason Marco could get into the Enies Lobby was his scholarship, which he got from judo.

Meanwhile, that Sabo guy answered to Ace's comment. His answer made Marco blink a couple of times, because his mind could not comprehend the message: '**It's your fault I'm all alone here, 'cause u didn't want to wake up an hour earlier to get to Mariejois!'** That was certainly the factor which Marco could not grasp – did Ace have a possibility to go to Mariejois, but chose Enies Lobby only because he liked to sleep? Did the same apply to his brother? Just who were his parents?

Marco got an answer to that pretty fast – Ace wrote '**Shut it, gramps almost sent me to the hospital because of that…**' '**Right, u live with Garp… Poor u :'D**'. There was only one Garp that Marco knew of – Monkey D. Garp, one very high ranked politician, ex-marine too. If Ace lived with that man, there was no surprise in the fact that he could go to Mariejois. However, the surnames didn't match, because Marco was certain that Ace's brother's surname was Monkey D., just like Garp's. Was he adopted? Marco knew he could relate to that – he had fourteen siblings, all of them adopted and he was the oldest one.

Of course, given that there were a lot of mouths to feed, they weren't very rich and Marco, being the eldest, had to set an example for his younger siblings. He knew that Pops was proud of him – to score a scholarship to Enies Lobby was a big thing, he was the only one so far. His brother Thatch got into the Water 7 High, which was also a good one, but not as good as Enies Lobby. Suddenly Marco felt a wave of anger rise and he logged out of facebook, not wanting to see anything else. He had to work very hard to get to this high school, but Ace turned Mariejois down to get an extra hour of sleep in the morning? The whole thing reeked of 'spoiled brat', the very thing Marco hated the most. Now, he really hated himself for agreeing to date that brat. This week was going to suck, for sure.

(^_^)

Ace was angry, angry to the point of burning his math book, to the point of assaulting his math teacher, to the point of setting the whole school on fire. He was reasonably good at maths, but if it was up to him, he'd go to the normal math class, but Garp decided that Ace would go to the advanced one. The worst part was that he couldn't change classes by himself, he needed approve of the guardian, which he wasn't likely to get, because that guardian wanted Ace in the advanced class. Luffy, on the other hand, went to the easy math class, even Garp knew that he could only expect so much, when it came to math and Luffy. If there was an all-you-can-eat subject at school, Luffy would have been the model student, but there wasn't one, so Luffy barely managed to pass his other subjects.

"Can you fucking explain it in a way somebody in this class could understand?!" Ace's patience burst, as he yelled at the stupid teacher, standing up and hitting his desk with his fist.

"Mr Portgas, don't raise your voice in class! And, above all, don't use such vulgar language at school!" the teacher glared at Ace, but said it in somewhat calm voice. "Sit down, please."

"No fucking way!" Ace growled, what could he say – he had a problem with authority. "Not until you explain in normal language."

"Mr Portgas, if you won't sit down, I'll have to ask you to leave the classroom," the teacher said, glaring.

"Fine by me!" Ace left his books on his desk, as he went to the door. He slammed it loudly behind him, as he went to the corridor. Still feeling angry, he hit the door with his fist, making it rattle loudly. Ace growled, as he walked away from the classroom – hopefully, this will get Garp into school and Ace out of the advanced math class. Ace went to the stairs, to get out of the school and to the school yard. He needed to go somewhere quiet, where he could calm down and, maybe, sleep.

(^_^)

Marco could not believe his eyes – was that brat skipping classes too? Why else would he be going through the school yard during lessons? The brat walked quickly, it was either because he didn't want to be seen or because he was angry. Marco thought that version number two was a better one – if he didn't want to be seen, he should not have walked across the yard so that everybody could see him. 'Just how much of an ungrateful brat is he,' Marco thought angrily. He had every possibility in the world yet he was throwing them away. Marco glared at the boy, who turned around the building and disappeared from sight.

He turned his full attention to the teacher, who was explaining English grammar on the whiteboard. Marco copied everything to his copybook, nodding to himself, as he understood how it worked. It made sense, everything had a logical explanation. The teacher ordered them to do exercises from the textbook and started walking around the classroom. As Marco stared at the first exercise, his thoughts went back to that spoiled brat. What the hell was his problem? Was it really that hard to appreciate the opportunities he had?

Marco shook his head violently – he had to focus on the exercise, because he worked very hard to get where he was now. He could not do anything to compromise his position, he didn't have a marine admiral behind him to ensure his place at this school. Marco scribbled angrily in his copybook, a plan forming in his head. He'll beat the living daylight out of that spoiled brat on every fucking training until he started to appreciate everything he had.

The lesson ended uneventfully, so Marco decided to go down to cafeteria to get some coffee. He had a late night, with all the homework he had to do. Robin went with him, following Marco silently. When they neared the cafeteria, she finally spoke:

"You are angry," this wasn't a question.

"I am," Marco replied; he stopped thinking about it long time ago, how come she knew everything.

"Why?"

"I thought you knew," Marco chuckled.

"I'm not all-knowing, I thought you knew that," Robin smiled.

"Hm, could have fooled me, I thought you knew everything," Marco got in line at the cafeteria; there was a fair number of people there.

"Since you are avoiding the subject, I think it has something to do with the person you'll be dating this week," Robin said in calm voice. Marco sighed – and here he got his hopes up that she didn't know everything. The line moved slowly and Marco was as quiet as a spy, who was in interrogation. Meanwhile, the interrogator kept talking: "Judging from your body-language, I am correct. So, I will conclude that you found out something you didn't like about them and now you are unsure what to do about that. I also think that this is someone I know personally."

Why was Marco friends with Robin again? He bought his coffee and was about to go out of the cafeteria, when he noticed a straw hat not far from him. Marco stopped for a second, but moved on, only to be almost run over by Ace for the second time this day. Ace didn't even notice him, as he went strictly for his brother.

"Luffy! Run!" Ace yelled. "Old man is here!"

The boy with the straw hat turned around, his eyes round and scared, and then both of them disappeared form the cafeteria, running as if their lives depended on it. Marco rose his eyebrows, thankful to lady luck that he didn't spill his coffee all over himself.

"YOU STUPID UNGRATEFUL BRATS!" yelled somebody and Marco miraculously saved his uniform from being stained with coffee, as he was almost run over for the third time. This time it was an elderly man, already grey-haired, but, judging by his speed and physique, was still kicking, quite literally too. Maybe, just maybe, Ace's and Luffy's life did depend on how fast they could run, Marco thought, as he watched Garp kick some boys out of his way.

"Ah, right, Luffy broke a window this morning…" Marco heard Robin say calmly. "And with Ace lashing out at math teacher, they better run."

"How did you know that?" Marco stared at Robin, she never ceased to surprise him.

"I have my ways," Robin smiled mysteriously. "I can't blame Ace, their teacher is really bad at explaining things."

Marco sipped his coffee, thinking. So that was the reason Ace skipped the lesson. Maybe, just maybe, he wasn't too much of a spoiled brat. Judging by how Garp stormed through cafeteria and how fast the brothers ran, they had a strict guardian. Was the statement about hospital serious? Garp did seem like a person to do it.

Marco and Robin went out to the school yard – it was lunch, but Marco already ate, after the dentist, and Robin always skipped lunch, for whatever reason. They were right on time to see Ace being thrown to the side, as he tried to get Garp to release Luffy, who was held by Garp by his collar, half a meter of the ground. Luffy was struggling too, thrashing around and occasionally, kicking his grandfather in the stomach. Garp totally ignored Luffy, dead set on catching Ace too.

Marco was sure that Garp got Ace, but Ace evaded it by ducking. Or what Marco though was ducking. Ace fell flat on the ground, as if somebody hit him hard on the head from behind. He was lifted by the scruff of his neck by Garp; Ace was absolutely motionless, hanging like a marionette.

"Good timing," Garp chuckled. "Luffy, stand still."

Garp put pouting Luffy down and threw Ace over his shoulder, the latter still being out cold. Luffy was standing close, not making any attempts to get away. Marco looked around – why wasn't anyone worried about Ace? He was sure that fainting like that should cause some commotion, but not one of the people, who gathered to watch the show, was bothered by it. Confused, Marco turned to Robin for answers; Garp was leaving, with Luffy leading the way and Ace over his shoulder.

"No need to worry, this happens pretty often," Robin smiled.

"He faints a lot? Isn't it bad, shouldn't he get checked out?" Marco frowned.

"Ace has narcolepsy," Robin said calmly, not concerned at all. "You're about the only one in the school who doesn't know it. It means he falls asleep suddenly."

"Oh…" Marco finally understood what 'sleeping beauty' meant. He chuckled, sleeping beauty indeed.

"Hm…" Robin looked at Marco intently and he was sure that she figured everything out. "You know, there is so much more to it than what you saw on facebook."

Marco sighed – sometimes Robin was scary, and he meant scary outside the dojo. There she was downright terrifying. She smiled at Marco, who was sure that she could read minds too.

"Well, there is a reason I'm called a Devil's Child," Robin chuckled.

"Who calls you that?" Marco stared, that was mean.

"Those who don't like me," Robin smiled. "There are few, who can stand me as I am."

"Hm," Marco finished his coffee and looked around for a trash can. "I couldn't tell, judging by you being number four," he found the trash can and walked there, with Robin following him.

"Appearances can be deceiving," Robin smiled.

"You would know everything about it," Marco chuckled.

"I do and I say that you don't know the whole story."

"Really now?"

"Marco, you should not judge the book by its cover."

"You are rephrasing things."

"Good, you noticed."

"Then what's the whole story?" Marco snapped. "If you intend to not to tell me, then stop saying it."

"I just want you to be open-minded and ask him yourself. It is not my place to spill the beans, so to speak."

"I am open-minded!"

"No, right now your mind is clouded by anger."

Marco huffed, angry with himself. He, Phoenix Marco, didn't lose his temper. And, more importantly, he stood by his word and he shouldn't need Robin, to remind him of it.

(^_^)

Ace slowly woke up from his slumber. The last thing he remembered was that old man got hold of Luffy. After that, his mind blacked out. One damn unfortunate timing that was. Ace groaned, as he sat up on the couch he was placed on. His head hurt, like always, when he fell face first to the ground. Luckily, his nose didn't seem broken and he felt more or less fine.

Ace opened his eyes and looked around. He was at the principal's office, no Garp or Luffy anywhere in the vicinity. The principal, Garp's former co-worker, Aokiji, was napping behind his desk. Ace cleared his throat, as he put his legs down. The principal stirred, opening one eye at him.

"Ah, awake, at last," Aokiji said, stretching lazily.

"I take it the meeting is over?" Ace asked, rubbing his face with his hands.

"Yeah, it is. Rejoice, you are out of the advanced math," Aokiji yawned. "I convinced Garp that it was for the best."

"Thanks a lot!" Ace's face lit up.

"Now, get out of here, your club activity starts in fifteen minutes."

"Thank you very much!" Ace stood up and bowed properly to the principal.

"Just get out."

Ace walked out of the principal's office, his heart singing in his chest – finally, finally he would stop going to the advanced math. He ran to his homeroom, to get his things. The school was mostly empty, since the students went to their club activities already. The classroom was empty, his things already packed. He would have to thank Nami for this, she always took care of his things whenever his narcolepsy decided it was time to say hi.

Ace grabbed his school bag, his sports bag and his blazer and ran out of the classroom. If he got lucky, he would be on time. He dashed through the school, out of the school and to the dojo. He'd be killed, if he was late, Marco-sempai was very strict when it came to training. Ace crashed through the doors of the dojo, slipped and almost fell down, as he ran for the changing room.

Ace must have been in lady luck's good graces, for when he tumbled into the changing room, there were a couple of people, changing. He threw his bags on the closest bench and started stripping, ignoring comments about him being a sleeping beauty. He changed quickly and walked through the doors, which separated the changing room from dojo. Ace quickly went to the line and sat down; he tried to ignore the glare Marco was giving him for almost being late. He just hoped he'll live past today's training.

The training started as usual, they bowed and were sent to do fifteen laps around school. Ace, who already did what could count as one lap, decided to save his power for later and was jogging in average pace. It didn't bother him one bit that he was passed by every member of the judo club. Ace knew that after six to eight laps he'll pass most of them. Given that the school premises weren't small, the laps were large and it took some time to pass. Ace only wished he had some music to go with laps.

His calculations were correct – after what Ace counted as seventh lap, he passed more than a half of the club with his steady pace. After the second lap Ace started humming whatever songs came to his mind. For whatever reason, he was stuck on the banana song, so he was jogging and muttering to himself 'ba-ba-ba ba-ba na-na, ba-ba-ba ba-ba na-na, banana-a-a potato na-a-a, banana-a-a'. When he was muttering 'potato-o-o', he heard a question:

"Food again?"

"Marco-sempai?" Ace blushed a little, as he lost his pace for a moment, but caught up in a second.

"Yo!" sempai raised his hand a little in a greeting manner, jogging beside Ace. "So, you'll do anything for food, huh?"

"Not anything…" Ace blushed, as he thought about what kind of impression of himself he gave to Marco – a food-crazed idiot.

"Almost anything, then."

"Not really…"

"But it's still high on the priority list?"

Ace nodded, blushing – denying was hopeless. He was an idiot, a huge one too. Marco chuckled at his nod and ran faster; Ace kept his pace. He jogged, thinking that this Monday was either the best Monday he had ever had (because of the math) or the worst (because of Marco).

After the jog, everybody gathered in front of dojo, stretching. Ace went straight for the drinking fountain. There was a line, but a small one – they had to be done stretching the moment Marco went inside. Ace got a mouthful of water and quickly moved out of the way. He saw Robin, who was with the karate group, and waved his hand. She waved back, blowing her cheeks up, until she looked like a hamster, and pointed at him. Ace swallowed the water and smiled at her. She hit her forehead lightly with her knuckles and pointed to Ace's left. Ace turned his head to see Marco walk into the dojo.

"Oh, shit…" Ace quickly followed, starting a domino chain.

Marco was already standing in the centre of the dojo, glaring at his club members. Ace tried to stand somewhere as far away from the scary sempai as possible, but he was out of luck. Marco headed towards Ace and Ace paled – he knew all too well, what that meant.

"You'll be sparring with me today," Marco said to Ace, who could hear the whole group exhale in relief.

Their coach came in and said to divide themselves into pairs. Ace was mentally writing his will, knowing that he won't have time for that later.

"Relax," he heard Marco say. "I'm not going to butcher you."

At that, Ace dared to look at his sempai, who was smiling. He exhaled silently and looked at his opponent – if he didn't give his very best, he'd get his ass handed to him on silver platter.

"I have been thinking about what you said this morning, about the finishing line and the food," said Marco, looking Ace in the eye. "How about it, I'll treat you to an all-you-can-eat buffet if you can beat me."

"Sempai, did you hit your head?" Ace asked, frowning – nobody ever took that seriously.

"No, I'm being serious."

"Are you sure?" Ace was very doubtful.

"Very. Give it your best shot." Marco challenged Ace.

"I hope you know what you're doing." Ace bowed and rose his hands to his shoulder level. He breathed slowly, calming himself. He was an experienced fighter and he still took a detour to the Grey Terminal after school twice a week. In front of him was just another thug from the Terminal and when did he lose to one of them?

Ace watched calmly, as Marco bowed and raised his hands. He was watched intently, he didn't have to see to know that. Another breath and Ace launched for his opponent. He didn't see his surroundings, not even his opponent's face. He was calm, his breathing even. The opponent was good, his speed and strength was better than Ace's, but Ace was just testing his opponent. When he felt that he was done testing, he grabbed the opponent's arm. 'Break it!' sounded in Ace's mind, but he wasn't fast enough – the opponent got his arm back and grabbed Ace's collar. Perfect. Moving much faster than before, Ace grabbed the hand grabbing his collar, turned and threw his opponent over his back. Ace added a finishing blow with his elbow to the opponent's solar plexus. After that, he quickly got to his feet, ready for another attack – thugs from the Grey Terminal seldom came alone.

The second attack came from behind, just as expected. Ace turned, landing two hits in the thug's stomach and a roundhouse kick on the shoulder and returning to his starting position – relaxed posture, arms raised to the shoulder level, palms out, slightly slouched and head bowed, eyes half-closed. He waited for the next opponent.

* * *

**Just want to say, that the whole story is going to be somewhat different from manga. The timeline will be the same, but, basically, I'm doing whatever I want here. **

**Next update will be somethime next week (hopefully, because I have one BIG exam then). **

**Thanks a lot for all the wonderful reviews, favourites and follows. **

**Rhe.**

**PS: still looking for a beta. Anyone?**


	3. Monday (Part 3)

**So, here I come! **

**After taking into consideration several things, I'm upping the rating of the story to M. Sorry to those who read this because it's a T.**

**Beta'ed by: Lady Spritzy and aqua-empress.**

**Disclaimer: not mine, Eichiro Oda, Rihito Takarai and Tachibana Venio(2nd author of the manga) .**

* * *

"I hope you know what you're doing," the boy in front of him said doubtfully, bowing.

Marco observed the posture of his sparring partner. He saw the boy relax, breathing steadily, calming down. It was an eerie calm before the storm. Marco fought every single one of his kouhai, so he knew their style and patterns. What he was seeing in front of him was something totally different. It wasn't the usual Ace, this was somebody else. Somebody who fought countless battles, who didn't need to see his surroundings, who felt them instead. Interesting.

Marco was surprised when Ace attacked him. He didn't see it coming, but he blocked the attack and tried to get a hold of Ace. The boy was fast, faster than usual, but Marco wasn't fighting to his fullest either. He knew he was being tested. Ace shifted subtly, and Marco knew the testing was over. Ace got hold of his arm, but Marco freed it and grabbed Ace's collar. Marco didn't foresee what happened next. Ace moved as a blur, grabbing Marco's hand, turning and throwing Marco over his back.

Marco didn't have time to catch his breath as his back hit the floor. Ace hit him with his elbow in the solar plexus, making Marco curl and gasp for air, but he kept his eyes on Ace. The boy returned to his starting position. Marco saw the coach come to Ace from behind and tap on Ace's shoulder. Marco sat up, watching intently. Ace moved with astounding speed, as he hit the coach twice in the stomach and added a roundhouse to the shoulder, sending the coach to the floor. Marco got to his feet, as he watched Ace return to his starting position.

He took a step forward, palms out in a calming gesture, but Ace lashed out at him. This time Marco didn't underestimate his opponent. This wasn't even a judo fight anymore. For whatever reason, Ace was apparently fighting for his life. The whole dojo was watching them now, as they blocked, kicked, landed hits and evaded each other's attacks. It had been a long while since Marco got to fight all-out like this. Last time was when Robin got pissed at him and fought him without holding back.

It was fun. The longer they fought, the better they got to know each other. Marco noticed a pattern in Ace's movements, or, at least, he thought it to be a pattern. From time to time Ace made a little grabbing motion as if there was something missing, like a stick or a spear. It only intensified Marco's attention on Ace: if there was one pattern, there would definitely be more.

The fight dragged on, with only the sound of the two fighters filling the air. Finally Marco saw an opening. He had to trust his instincts and not his head, which was yelling that it was a trap. He used the opening as his instincts told him to, getting Ace flat on his stomach on the tatami, his arms held in a lock by Marco, who was sitting on Ace's back. To say that Ace gave up without a fight would be an understatement of the year. Ace thrashed under Marco like a cornered wild animal. The whole situation looked ridiculously like a rodeo Marco once saw on the TV.

"Hey now, I know you want to win, but I'm not up for round three for the next half an hour, so quit struggling," Marco said, breathing heavily.

He felt Ace relax under him and warily ask:

"Marco-sempai?"

Marco's instincts told him that it was safe to let go, so he released Ace and rose.

"Yeah. I knew I was right to use food as a trigger," Marco chuckled, holding out his hand to Ace.

The boy turned around, sitting up. He stared, unsure, at the hand, but accepted it. Marco pulled Ace up to his feet and a scattered applause started, tentative at first, but stronger and louder by the second. The coach walked over to them, clapping as well.

"You two can go now, you earned it," the coach said to them. "The rest of you, start again!"

Marco had to drag Ace out of the dojo, because the latter was dazed and unfocused. They got to the changing room and Marco released the boy.

"I didn't hurt anyone, did I?" Marco heard Ace ask as he was stripping to go to the shower.

"You kicked coach pretty hard, but I think he's fine," Marco shrugged as he grabbed his towel and headed towards the shower. "By the way, you earned that buffet. I misjudged you in the first round. I guess this shines a new light on 'everything for food'."

Marco turned on the water, standing out of its way – he knew these showers all too well - he'd either get a frostbite or a burn, if he stood under the water. This time it would have been a frostbite, so Marco adjusted the temperature and stepped under the shower. He closed his eyes and raised his face to the water, sighing in content. It had been a good training session - his body hadn't ached like that in ages. Marco heard Ace walk into the showers, taking one next to him – showers were divided by walls, up to Marco's elbow.

"You are quiet," Marco noticed, as he grabbed his shampoo. When he didn't get a reply, he asked, "Where did you learn to fight like that?"

"The Grey Terminal…" Ace mumbled, fixing his shower temperature.

"Where's that? Never heard of it," Marco looked at Ace curiously.

"Outside the East Blue district," Ace closed his eyes and ran his hands through his hair.

"Is that a school?"

"In a way, sure."

Marco raised his eyebrows at that. It sounded as if Ace didn't really want him to know what it was. Well, he'd find out eventually. They showered in silence, in Ace's case it was somewhat depressed silence.

"So, when do you want to collect your prize?" Marco made another attempt to get Ace talking once they were in the changing room. As they dressed, Marco couldn't help but inspect Ace's body. It wasn't hard, since the boy was distracted and wasn't paying attention to his surroundings. Marco liked what he saw – defined muscles flexing under the skin as Ace moved, lean, trained body… Marco liked it a lot. His previous anger at Ace long forgotten, he was busy enjoying the view the boy provided while he put on his pants.

"What prize? I lost," Ace grumbled as he leaned down for the white singlet he wore under the school shirt.

"Not the first round," Marco swallowed as he continued to stare at the boy in front of him. Damn, he looked good.

"Huh?" Ace turned around, staring at Marco in disbelief, who hastily put on his own pants. "No, I didn't!"

"So it wasn't you who hit my solar plexus with your elbow?" Marco put on his black t-shirt, but stopped and pointed to the forming bruise. Ace stared at the spot, but caught himself and turned around, but Marco still noticed slight blush on the other's face. "Thought so. So, when are you collecting your prize? Anytime is fine."

The boy continued to gather his things, not looking at Marco, so Marco walked over to him and cleared his throat.

"If not today, how about we exchange phone numbers, so you can give me a call whenever you want it?" Marco suggested.

Ace looked hesitant, but took out his mobile and wrote down Marco's contact information. Marco did the same with Ace's number.

"Good," Marco smiled. "Feel free to call me any time of the day."

Ace nodded as he packed his uniform and said goodbye, leaving quickly. Marco sighed, packing his own stuff. There was something wrong with that kid. He looked scared stiff, but not of Marco. It was more like he was afraid of himself. Marco recognised the look alright, after all, he wasn't too different. He was grateful to Pops, for teaching him to control his strength and to keep his emotions under control. Thanks to Pops, Marco didn't slip for the last five years. He fixed his grades and even got as far as Enies Lobby, something that people at the orphanage thought impossible. Everybody that Pops took in was considered a hopeless case, good for nothing, scum.… He helped them to set things right, to prove themselves, to start anew.

Marco actually sent a copy of his scholarship to the orphanage, to show them how wrong they were. Of course, they didn't believe him until he came over in his new school uniform and showed them his new school identification card. The look on their faces had been priceless. Former problem child, bully and basically worthless waste of space has turned into a model student, all thanks to one man who just gave him a chance. Frankly, Marco would never even begin to be able to repay Pops. What he could do, though, was to guarantee Pops wouldn't regret his decision.

Marco walked to the bus stop slowly. He was calm and content with his life. He turned a corner, surprised to see Ace talking on his cell.

"No, I'll come over, it's not a problem. What are you talking about, Dadan? My homework will be fine, I'll just drop by and help out. Will you stop that? No, Luffy won't be coming, I finished early today. What should I get you? Will you shut it, I'm dropping by the convenience store anyway. Yeah, see you in an hour." Ace pressed the end call button and as he put his phone away, he looked up to see Marco's curious expression.

"Who was that?" Marco asked, not expecting an answer. After all, he was sticking his nose into another person's business.

"Someone I know broke her leg, the idiot, and she needs some help around the house. Nobody will be home until later," Ace sighed.

"Oh.…" Marco raised an eyebrow at that. There was a slight awkward silence.

"Well, see you around, sempai," Ace waved his hand and ran off.

Marco stared after him, frowning. Was it him, or did his boyfriend (albeit only for this week) just ran off to meet a woman? Robin's face flashed in his mind, as Marco shook his head. He shouldn't be jealous without any good reason. Wait, why would he be jealous? Marco walked to the bus stop, sighing, surprised with himself. Yeah, the boy had one painfully hot body, a matching face and, most importantly, was one hell of a fighter… Wait, what was he wondering about? Ah, right, it felt really good, when he pinned Ace down in the dojo… He wasn't thinking about that at the time, but looking back… Despite keikogi being in the way, he could feel Ace's nice body very well and he got a good look in the changing room…

Marco blinked as his bus pulled up before him. That was a new development, for sure. Not the buss, Ace. Marco stepped into the bus and took an empty seat by the window, deep in thought. He'd really like to pin Ace down, but without any annoying clothes in his way. Marco stirred once again – what the hell was wrong with him? Still, it would have been amazing, really… Feeling that body against him, as he bent down to kiss Ace's neck and shoulders, one hand holding down Ace's hands, the other sneaking down to stroke Ace's already hard member, at the same time as his own rubbed against that amazing ass he had privilege to see in the changing room…

Marco's eyes flew open, as he stared, horrified, in front of him. He _did not_ just imagine that! He wasn't even aware of the boy this morning, something must be seriously wrong with him. Marco stared out the window, counting white cars and trying not to think about two things – the raven-haired boy with blinding smile and a certain problem, which only became harder when he thought about the origins of it. Somehow he had the feeling that this week wouldn't be as easy as he thought it to be. More like punishment for the crimes he committed before Pops took him in. Given, that there was one hell of a long list of those, the retribution was going to be a bitch. Marco could barely sit in place until his stop came. He flew out of the bus and ran to his house. He needed one frigid shower, right now.

His house was five hundred metres from the bus stop and stood out like a white crow among its black brethren. It was four storeys high, made of bricks and had a white roof. Inside, each floor had five rooms and two bathrooms, with the first floor also containing the kitchen, dining room, two living rooms, laundry room and pantry. While there was no cellar, there was an attic. On the fifth floor lived Pops with the biggest bedroom and a private bathroom, Marco, Thatch, Vista and Jozu, who each had decent sized rooms and shared a bathroom. On the third floor lived Blamenco, Rakuyo, Namur, Blenheim and Curiel. The second floor was occupied by Kingdew, Atmos, Jiru and Fossa, Haruta and Izo shared a room, being the youngest. Marco thought that he'd have to move to the attic or move out soon – Haruta and Izo were old enough to have their own rooms.

Marco literally sneaked to the door and cracked it open carefully. Pops was almost always at home as he was retired and had some health issues, but he was the last on the list of the people Marco didn't want to see in his current state. He really didn't want to end up in an interrogation before he got a chance to go and take a shower.

He flew up the stairs as silently as possible, knowing all too well which stairs creaked and which were safe. Marco got to the fourth floor and went straight for his room. His biggest advantage was that he came home early and nobody expected that. He grabbed a change of clothes and sneaked to the bathroom, which, thankfully, was empty. Marco locked the door and could finally exhale. Now, to face his problem at hand. Marco glared at himself in the mirror – this was not like him. He didn't lose control that easily, even if it was one hell of a good fight and Ace was oh so tempting.

"Get a hold of yourself, you idiot!" Marco growled to himself as he took off his clothes and got into the shower. The problem was still present and didn't seem to be going away anytime soon, so he turned on the shower, setting it on the coldest possible.

The water was ice cold, but it served its purpose – Marco exhaled as his problem shrank. If this was going to continue being an issue, he would probably have to consider calling in sick.

After the shower Marco went down to the kitchen to get some food before he had to start doing his homework for tomorrow. As he expected, the old man was in the kitchen, sitting in his chair and drinking tea as he read the newspaper.

"You're early, kid," the man lifted his eyes from the paper and looked at Marco.

"The coach let me go early," Marco shrugged.

"That so?" Marco knew he was supposed to elaborate, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Instead, he just shrugged as he looked into the fridge. There wasn't any food he could just warm up and eat, so he decided on making spaghetti with tomatoes and feta-cheese. Preparing the things he needed for cooking, he felt the old man's ever-watchful eyes on him.

"Something bothering you, kid?" the old man asked, when Marco put the spaghetti into the water.

Marco thought about it for a moment. Then he remembered he had questions, that needed answers, so he could ask them now just as well.

"Have you ever heard of Grey Terminal?" Marco asked.

"What about it?" Pops asked.

"Well, a friend of mine said it was kind of like school, so…" Marco didn't finish as his old man started laughing loudly after he heard the word 'school'. "I take it that it's not," Marco said, as he washed tomatoes.

"Your friend has one damn good sense of humour…" the old man chuckled. "You can sure look at it that way, but no, it's not a school. It's not a place you want to end up, 'cause that's one fast way to get mugged, raped or killed." Marco stared at Pops with wide eyes, tomatoes completely forgotten. Meanwhile, Pops continued. "It's at the foot of mount Corvo, and you don't want to go there either, 'cause there are real thugs up on that mountain. If down at the Grey Terminal they have just unfortunate people mixed with scum, on that mountain there are real cutthroats, who would kill you without as much as blinking. You can call it survival school, if you'd like that."

Marco blinked, completely confused. What could Ace be possibly doing in such a place was beyond his comprehension.

"How did Grey Terminal came up in the conversation?" Pops asked, frowning.

"I asked him where he learned to fight, and he said Grey Terminal," Marco answered, back to washing and cutting tomatoes.

"That so? Then you have one interesting friend, kid. No one comes to the Grey Terminal willingly, just as nobody wants their kids to end up at Impel Down."

"Is it really that bad?" Marco took out a frying pan and put it on the stove, happy that he had his back to Pops – his face was that of complete horror. He had been well on his way to Impel Down before Pops came into the picture. There was only one thing he could think when Impel Down was mentioned, and that was 'they won't take me alive'.

Impel Down was an institution for 'troubled' teenagers. They called it that, but Marco knew better, since he had gotten a tour through the place while he was still at the orphanage. It was a lot like the concentration camps from the WWII, only cleaner. All in all, Marco rather be dead than come there again.

"Well, don't you sound like a spoiled brat, kid… And no, it's not as bad as Impel Down. It's much worse. At Impel Down they have rules, but in the Grey Terminal it's absolute anarchy. Is that friend of yours from your school?"

"Yeah, he's in my club…" Marco answered; he flinched when Pops called him a spoiled brat. That was exactly what he accused Ace of being, when in reality, he knew nothing about him. Marco had made assumptions and believed in them as if it was the sole truth.

"That so? Well, I sure hope you are nice to that kid, he's been through some tough shit for sure."

Marco hummed, nodding, as he put the tomatoes on the frying pan. He had a lot to think about and none of it was pleasant. He frowned – he didn't like that he jumped to conclusions. At least he kind of understood why Ace didn't go to Mariejois - he would sure feel out of place there, where everybody (he's jumping to assumptions again, damn it) had anything they wanted brought to them on silver platter. Fine, maybe not everybody, but definitely vast majority.

Marco finished cooking and ate quickly in silence – the old man went upstairs to take a nap right after he told Marco to be nice to Ace and nobody else came down. Marco was fine with that though, as he wouldn't be much of a company anyway. After he ate and washed the dishes after himself, he went back to his room and started his homework.

As always, there was a lot of it, so Marco took breaks when he needed to keep his concentration. When he was done it was around eight o'clock in the evening. Marco pushed his books away from him tiredly and reached for his old laptop. The only thing it was good for was surfing the net and writing essays, which was fine as Marco didn't have time for computer games. He only ever occasionally played Minesweeper, which was built in.

He opened the laptop and turned it on. Then Marco got up from the chair and went down to the kitchen – it took really long time for his laptop to fire up. The kitchen was empty, which was odd, but Marco didn't mind it. He looked through the fridge, but it was completely empty, meaning that most of the people in the house were out buying food. Marco fished his mobile from his pocket and called Thatch.

"Yeah?" Thatch answered pretty quickly, only after three tones.

"You out shopping?" Marco asked, thoughtfully looking at the empty fridge.

"Yeah, you need something?"

"I just wanted a snack and the fridge is totally raided," Marco said as he closed it and sat down on one of the chairs.

"What did you expect? Anyways, we didn't wanna bother you, but Izo baked some muffins and we left you a couple to keep you alive until we get back with food," Thatch answered.

"And where did you hide them?"

"They should be in the oven, so look there. If you can't find them, then you'll have to starve until we get back."

"Thanks," Marco sighed and ended the call.

He went to the stove and, luckily for him, there were three raspberry muffins there, waiting for him. Deciding that the tea would go well with them, he put some water on to boil. Taking the biggest mug he could find (and it was a BIG one), he picked the tea and waited for the water. Soon enough he had a brick with a mug of black tea and three raspberry muffins to carry up to his room.

By that time his laptop was good enough to use it, so he got himself comfortable in his convertible sofa and logged in on facebook. After typing Portgas in the search engine the second time this day, Marco felt a lot like a stalker. There was a status update from Ace, just a couple of minutes ago: '**Spent the day at Dadan's :) have been doing chores all day :( homework can go to hell, I'm going to bed'**.

The first comment was Luffy's:

**'I think dadan looks like nami :D**'

'**lol XD**' - Ace.

'**rofl X'D**' - Sabo.

'**take that back!**' – Nami.

Marco frowned. If Ace spent the rest of his day doing chores for a woman who looked like Nami, why did he ask him out? Of course, there was a possibility of them being just friends, but that did little to ease the weird feeling in Marco's chest. Then Marco saw that Ace shared Sabo's status with a link. '**Last week's session is up, the crew did a great job as always. Thanks for doing this, it means a lot to me.**'

Marco raised his eyebrows – it sounded very cryptic, so he followed the link to see what this was all about. The link led to a picture gallery on a website, which seemed to belong to a fashion brand called 'Criminal'. The logo was a star with stitches across it, reminding Marco of Zoro's scar.

Slightly curious, Marco selected the first picture. His eyes widened a lot and he choked on the muffin, when he saw, who was on that picture. It just had to be Ace, wearing faded jeans, light blue shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows, dark-grey waistcoat, blue converse sneakers and a black fedora on his head. To make everything even stranger, he was somewhere in the city – Marco recognised the brick road and older buildings, - in the middle of a street with occasional passer-by's. To top everything off, Ace was in mid-jump. Ace's left side was to the camera, as he hovered almost a meter off the ground, knees up almost to his chest, the right one slightly higher than the left one, his left arm extended back with a black leather bracelet on the wrist, his right hand holding the fedora in place, but it slid down, covering the forehead. Ace's face was turned to camera only a little bit, but enough to see a smile on his lips and one grey eye, peaking at the camera from under the fedora. Marco had to admit – Ace looked good. More like awesome. Or hot. What more, he looked like he knew what he was doing, judging by the effortlessness of the smile and chosen angle.

Marco pressed on the arrow, to the next picture and there was Ace, again. He was jumping as well, but this was totally different. Ace's left hand was touching the ground, his right holding the hat in place. It looked like he was caught in the middle of somersault, his legs bent at the knees and the shirt slid down, revealing a lot of nicely toned stomach and the v-shaped muscle, as it was cut off by the jeans.

Next picture was again Ace, this time just strolling down the street, looking relaxed, the fedora was gone and his hands were in the front pockets of the jeans. Ace looked away from camera to his right, smiling. Next picture was different – it was Ace with Luffy on his back, both grinning at the camera. After that came a couple of pictures of Luffy alone, and then came a picture of Ace and Robin, walking hand in hand, talking to each other. After that – Ace walked between Nami and Robin, all three of them looking stunning. There were a couple of pictures of Luffy with each of the girls and then came Ace again, this time with Zoro. Zoro was ruffling Ace's hair as Ace was laughing and trying to get away from Zoro.

All in all, there were six of them – Ace, Luffy, Nami, Robin, Zoro and Sanji. Every single one of them looked like they knew what they were doing, confident in front of the camera. Apparently, they wore the clothes from the brand, as there was a small logo in the bottom right corner of every picture. In the bottom left corner, there was a small top hat and under every photo was a link to another website, which Marco typed hesitantly.

He was met by a video. Large white cursive letters on black stated: "The Top Hat Studio presents Firefish (there was a picture of Ace, taken in a studio, as he was smiling widely at the camera), Mugiwara (followed by a picture of Luffy), Cat Burglar (Nami), Devil Child (Robin), Kenshi (Zoro), All-Blue (Sanji), Empress (there was a picture of stunningly beautiful young woman with long black hair and dark blue eyes, wearing golden earrings in form of snakes), Surgeon (the boy on the picture was the same one as on Ace's page, the one who looked like he haven't slept in several weeks) and Tanuki (another boy from Ace's page, the small one with messy brown hair and big brown eyes). Welcome!"

After five minutes of browsing on the website, namely the pictures under the tab Firefish, Marco closed his laptop angrily, damn sure that he'll be having some very interesting dreams at night, the ones that needed a follow-up in form of a frigid shower on the next morning.

* * *

**Yes, I am aware it says Firefish, I did it on purpose XD **

**Thanks again for the reviews and favourites and follows. **

**Rhe.**


	4. Tuesday (Part 1)

**Hi again!**

**Beta'ed by aqua-empress.**

**Disclaimer: I suppose you already know what should be here. Not mine.**

* * *

On Tuesday morning Ace woke up as per usual, meaning he was literally dragged out of bed by Luffy, who woke up because of Ace's alarm. It worked perfectly for them – Luffy always forgot to set his own and Ace always slept through his. As he stumbled to his bathroom, Ace was barely aware of the surroundings. It was not unusual that he fell back asleep as he brushed his teeth, only to be woken up by Luffy with a cup of coffee in his hands. Coffee was about the only thing Luffy knew how to make and it took him several years to learn.

Ace jumped as Luffy touched his shoulder – he fell asleep standing in the bathroom. He thanked his brother for coffee and, after brushing his teeth, he took the mug from Luffy. Ace was somewhat envious of Luffy – it seemed like the kid only needed to breathe in the coffee aroma to wake up. Ace, on the other hand, needed a full mug of black coffee with a shitload of sugar, because coffee without sugar was just disgusting. Even with sugar and milk, it tasted disgusting, the only reason Ace kept drinking that shit was because it was the only thing that successfully kept him awake. His meds didn't work, although he still took them because he had to.

"Thank God for Marco Polo and coffee…" Ace muttered, as he moved to his bedroom with his mug. "Damn, if he didn't go to China, I'd be screwed by now…"

Ace went to his wardrobe, where his school uniform was hanging. He had several sets of the uniform, because it got dirty often – there was no telling when or where he'd fall asleep, sometimes literally. Ace dressed quickly and went down to the kitchen to make breakfast for himself and Luffy. There weren't many things that Ace thanked God for, but coffee and fridges with electronic locks were two of them. He was the only one in the house, who knew the combination and had a key to open the fridge, for obvious reasons. Despite worshipping food, Ace was well aware of his brother's needs, thus he held himself in check at home.

The breakfast was simple – just a lot of eggs and some bacon (more like a lot of bacon and some eggs). Ace inhaled his before Luffy could finish his own (he really could show this ability off for money) and ran up to his room to get his bag. When he came back, he sent Luffy to get his bag, while he opened the fridge and took out the bentos he prepared yesterday evening – four for Luffy and two for himself. Ace put his bento in his bag and waited for his brother, who, as always, couldn't find his bag.

"Have you checked under the bed?" Ace yelled to Luffy, slowly walking to the door.

"Yes!"

"Then check the living room! Your bento is in the kitchen, don't eat it!" Ace put on his shoes and waited for Luffy, so he could lock the door – his brother's empty head didn't have enough memory to remember it. "Hurry up!"

"Hai!" Luffy yelled back, as he rolled down the stairs and into the living room. From there he ran to the kitchen. "Is it a pirate bento?"

"Yes, it's a pirate bento, Luffy, now move!" Ace rolled his eyes as he waited by the door. He could see the clock in the living room and it showed that they had to get out of the house in the next five minutes.

"Coming!" Luffy sprinted out of the kitchen and came to a sliding stop in front of Ace, dropped on the floor and put on his shoes quickly. "Done!" He ran out the door.

Ace smiled and locked the door and walked after Luffy to the bus stop. It was close and the bus would arrive in about seven minutes, four of them were wasted by walking to the stop. As usual, Luffy, being his cheerful and carefree self, was running in circles around Ace, needing to get the energy out of his system. Ace didn't mind it, he was used to it already and, compared to when Luffy was seven years old, he was a lot less active. The seven year old Luffy had the energy of twenty nuclear reactors and had to be exercised the whole day long. Now, he could actually sit through the lesson, instead of driving his teachers mad with his excess energy.

Personally, Ace was a low-energy type of guy, but he compensated it with enormous stamina that he trained up during his years on mount Corvo. He was better than Zoro, though – when the swordsman wasn't training, he napped wherever he could sit, which annoyed Sanji a lot. Zoro even said once that he'd like to take Ace's narcolepsy off his hands if it was possible, so that he would have a legitimate reason to take a nap in the middle of the day.

The bus came in two minutes earlier than usual and they got on. Since it was an early morning, all the sitting places were taken and there was barely enough place for Ace and Luffy to squeeze in. This was a part of the going to school which Ace hated – being squeezed and getting his feet stepped on. His narcolepsy made it impossible for him to get a driving license and just drive to school, like everyone else his age did.

The ride to school was uneventful, just as usual. Ace sighed, when he got off the bus close to school – he'd have to learn how to levitate soon, or else he us going to break every single bone in his feet. He hated girls on stilettos the most, which was why whenever he had a girlfriend, he asked her to wear normal shoes. Speaking of which, did he have a boyfriend now? Or how does that 'date for a week' thing work? Was he supposed to go on a date with sempai? He'd have to ask Nami, she dated Marco for a week, way back, before she got together with Luffy. Speak of the devil…

"Good morning," said Nami, as she caught up with them.

"Morning," said Ace. In his opinion morning could never be good, not unless you got to sleep through it.

"Hi, Nami!" Luffy hugged Nami, almost strangling her.

"Luffy, get off," Nami said, without any real hostility or annoyance – it was more of a habit now. "I saw the photos yesterday, damn it, Ace, how come you're more popular than me?"

Ace shrugged, as he chuckled – the only reason Nami agreed to modelling for Sabo was because she got to earn money while she hung out with her friends. Plus the fact that they got to keep the clothes Criminal sent them for photo-shoots.

"Maybe because I have more experience in the field?" he said, doubtfully. Ace and Luffy were Sabo's first models, he was taking pictures of them way before Criminal noticed him and even before he got a decent camera. Now, the three of them, unlike before, knew exactly what they were doing in front or behind the camera.

"Not fair!" Nami pouted, but laughed in a second, unable to keep the pout on her face. "I should charge you for spending time with a person as famous as me."

"I think time with Firefish is worth more than with Cat Burglar, so in the end, you'd be paying me," Ace smiled – he was about the only one, beside Robin, who could get out of giving money to Nami. She tried to charge him for taking care of his things during his sleep attacks, but Ace miraculously managed to get out of it by saying that he should charge her for introducing her to Sabo.

"Damn it!" Nami muttered.

Luffy ran off to his classroom already and Ace and Nami were walking leisurely to their classroom, taking their time.

"I heard you got out of the advanced math," Nami noted.

"Yeah, thanks to Aokiji," Ace sighed at the memory of all the horrible hours he spent in that class.

"Congratulations," she mockingly ruffled Ace's hair.

"Thanks," Ace swatted the hand away and tried to comb his hair with his fingers, but all it did was making everything worse. He looked as if there was hurricane outside.

"Come here," Nami sighed in exasperation, as she took out her hair brush and used it on Ace. "Much better. Oh, good morning, sempai."

Ace turned around and saw Marco standing there. Apparently he wanted to go past them, but they blocked the stairs.

"Morning," Ace said warily. Sempai looked like he didn't get any sleep at all and Ace knew, that people who got very little sleep snap easily, so around those people Ace followed Cesar Millan's advice – 'no touch, no talk, no eye contact'. Of course, Cesar meant dogs, but Ace found that it worked perfectly on cranky humans as well. Sometimes, like today, he needed to be polite in order to avoid trouble. He moved away from Nami, making way for Marco, who nodded at them and walked up the stairs.

.

(^_^)

Marco's morning was horrible. He barely got two hours of sleep at night because of certain someone. Of course, he was the one to blame – nobody asked him to look at those photos, but one in particular was burned into his brain. It was a summer picture, people having fun in a swimming pool. In the background, at least. In front there was Ace, getting out of the pool. There were normal stairs there, which mean that Ace's hands were free to do whatever they wanted and they were swiping the wet black hair away from the face, giving a better view of Ace's trained torso. His red swimming shorts hung low on his hips, hugging everything perfectly, but Marco didn't get to see anything, because the picture cut in the most interesting place. Ace was hunched forward a little and looked at the camera with the expression that made Marco hard – the eyes, the little smirk, the freckles – everything said 'I know I'm hot and I know you want me, but you ain't gonna get any'.

Marco couldn't get that picture out of his head – when he closed his eyes, he could recall it with disturbing clarity, everything from the placement of the freckles on the face to every single droplet of water on that mouth-watering body. It resulted in him tossing and turning for most of the night and when he did get a little of sleep, Ace was present there and in the end Marco gave up on sleeping. That was around five o'clock in the morning.

Now he was barely dragging his feet up the flight of stairs in the school, silently thanking God for not having practice later today. Marco just followed the stairs up, holding the handrail just in case. He had to stop, because somebody blocked the stairs. Marco looked up, ready to snap at whoever it was, only to see Ace getting his hair fixed by the red-head, number three on the 'Most Wanted' list.

"Much better," she said, when she was satisfied with her work. "Oh, good morning, sempai," she said; Marco couldn't help but notice how close her and Ace's bodies were.

Ace turned around, his face expressed surprise when he saw Marco. 'Of course he'd look surprised, it's not like he'd have that smirk on all the time and it's not like he lost any sleep at night over a picture,' Marco reminded himself, as he stared at the boy in front of him. He was sure that if Ace had to, he could make school uniform look sexy as hell. On the other hand, there were a lot of old pervs who liked them young and in school uniform… Marco felt like he was turning into one of them, when his imagination made Ace to take the same pose as in that picture, only this time he wore his school uniform. 'Stop thinking!' Marco yelled at himself, as he kept staring at Ace.

"Morning," the boy in front of him said awkwardly, as he moved away from the red-head.

'Of course he feels awkward, you've been staring at him for who knows how long!' Marco's inner self smacked him on the head. 'Just walk away, walk away.'

Marco nodded to them in reply and walked past them, concentrating on his breathing, instead of Ace. He had to concentrate on ANYTHING but Ace. Anything, anything but that picture… Marco felt like banging his head against a wall in hope of gaining some control of his thoughts.

'What's wrong with you?' Marco's inner self said, angrily. 'You weren't even aware of his existence yesterday morning.'

Blissful time that was, Marco sighed. He didn't lose any sleep over incredibly hot people and he didn't get a boner every time he saw them and he had such perfect and blissful life… No, life just had to send him to the dentist so that he'd get run over by that same person and spend the rest of his life thinking about screwing him, because there's no way in hell that'll happen for real.

"Somebody, just kill me…" Marco muttered, as he walked into his classroom and collapsed on his chair.

"Somebody's optimistic today," Robin turned around in her chair, as she sat in front of Marco.

"You kidding?" he glared at her, opening one eye. Marco didn't even notice when he closed his eyes.

"No, I'm sarcastic. Will you elaborate?"

"Do you need me to?"

"I guess not, I just want to confirm my guess," Robin smiled pleasantly. "Do you mind if I do the talking?"

Marco waved his hand, telling her to go ahead. He really didn't care anymore.

"Can you open your eyes for a second?" she asked.

Marco raised his eyebrows curiously, but obeyed. Next moment he wished he didn't. Robin held her phone out for him to see. There was another picture of Ace, leaning back on a railing outside and wearing nothing but boots, black shorts and an orange hat. Marco didn't look more at the picture, he just closed his eyes and tried to relax. 'Breathe in, breathe out,' his inner self said calmingly, but Marco was far from being calm. Somebody up high had some kind of personal vendetta against him, it was the only way he could explain everything.

"Thank you," Robin said as if she was checking something on a list.

Marco just sighed. Robin was really merciless in her pursuit of knowledge. She'd stop at nothing to get the information she wanted, despite whatever collateral damage her pursuit would cause. Knowledge was above everything. That's what Marco hated right now. He wanted to see that photo again. Badly. He wanted to see every single detail, but he couldn't. It wouldn't do him any good, he knew that. Still, he wanted to have a closer look at the photo, preferably a live recreation he could touch and get to know. Hm, maybe he should ask Ace… 'BAD IDEA!' Marco's inner self yelled immediately. It was probably right, Marco wasn't sure he'd be able to resist that in any way.

The bell rung and Marco opened his eyes, reaching for his bag. He had a feeling that today was going to be one very long day, and the schedule didn't help – he had a very boring day today according to it. He knew what he'd do the first thing after the lesson – go to the cafeteria and get himself some coffee to get him through the morning.

.

(^_^)

Ace was happy. Happy as a clam. Everything was perfect in his little world right now. Namely, he was in his math class and it was a regular one and the teacher was nice and he understood everything and he was happy. Finally, finally math made sense to him. Of course, there were some bad sides to it, like Nami and Law still being in the advanced class, but he could live with that, he didn't need anything to be explained to him ten times before he got a smallest clue as to what the hell he was supposed to do. There were actual numbers in his text book, not some form of elfish he couldn't read. He smiled at the memory of the picture on the internet – he could relate to it. Ace really missed the feeling of being able to understand what the teacher was talking about. He was happy. Everything was perfect… Until he faceplanted on the desk thanks to his narcolepsy.

The lesson was still going on when he came around, nobody as much as looked at him, they were all used to it. Except for the teacher, apparently, who was slightly paler than what she was before Ace blacked out. Since everyone was working in their textbooks, she came over to him and asked:

"Are you alright?"

Ace felt sorry for her, she looked really scared.

"Yeah, I'm completely fine, it happens all the time," he smiled apologetically – he was starting to like this teacher and scaring her like that wasn't high on his list of priorities.

"So I've heard. Are you sure you are fine? You don't need to go to the nurse?"

"I'm fine, don't worry," Ace chuckled, it was always funny to see the reactions he got from the new teachers when his narcolepsy decided to say hi. The horrified expression on their faces never got old.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

"Tell me, if you feel weird or anything."

"I will, don't worry," although the convincing part was getting annoying.

The rest of the lesson was uneventful, so after it Ace took his wallet and went to cafeteria – his next lesson was chemistry lab, so he didn't want to end up with his face in hydrochloric acid. Thus he needed a supply of coffee, strong enough to keep him wide awake during the whole lab. Even if he wasn't trusted with chemicals (his lab partners always handled those), it's not like he did nothing – he set up the whole thing and he was good at figuring things out, so everyone wanted to have him as their partner.

Ace rolled down the stairs and skipped all the way to cafeteria. He actually liked chemistry, unlike social sciences he had after the lab. If only he could, he would have made himself fall asleep for the duration of the lesson. Now, with the advanced math out of the picture, the social sciences were going to be the bane of his existence.

He was so deep in dark thoughts about the lesson, that he didn't notice an obstacle in front of him and he ran straight into it. Correction – not it, Marco-sempai.

"You have to stop popping up wherever I'm going to run," Ace laughed, sitting on the floor and looking at Marco, who was glaring at him.

"You've got to stop running in the school," Marco answered, as he got up.

"I was going to the cafeteria," Ace said, hoping that Marco wasn't too mad at him for running him down two days in a row.

"Food…" Marco rolled his eyes and started to walk in the direction of cafeteria, not waiting for Ace, so he got up quickly and caught up to sempai.

"Nope, this time it's coffee," Ace smiled widely. "I need to be awake for the lab."

"Which one?"

"Chemistry. What's your next period?"

"Physics."

"I would have liked physics if I had a different teacher, our teacher sucks…" Ace sighed – he had the same teacher in physics and advanced math. Needless to say – the guy hated Ace.

"Hm," Marco answered, as they waited in queue in the cafeteria.

"So, what do you have today, sempai?" Ace asked, because the pause was getting awkward.

"English, physics, double math and religion," sempai answered shortly.

"Eh… I kind of wish that was my schedule… I have math, double chemistry, social sciences and biology…" Ace sighed. "I really hate social sciences…"

"Hm," that was all he got out of Marco, who was now pouring coffee into a paper mug and not even sparing a glance in Ace's direction. He paid for his coffee and walked away slowly, carefully drinking the hot beverage.

Ace quickly made himself coffee, exchanged a few words with the cafeteria lady, who was complaining about Luffy, paid for his coffee and what Luffy ate (that was really the last of his money, unless Sabo transferred him his earnings from the last photo-shoot) and hurried after Marco.

Before he caught up to his sempai, though, his phone rang, so Ace stopped, as he fished it out of his pocket. Speak of the devil…

"'Sup!" Ace said cheerfully.

"Hi yourself," Sabo said on the other end. "Can you make some time for me on Friday? I got a new camera, so I need to take it for a test-drive."

"Sure, but you better give me my money or I'll starve before Friday arrives, I just spent everything I had to pay for everything Luffy ate in the cafeteria…" Ace answered; he noticed that sempai stopped and was listening to the conversation.

"I already did, last night," Sabo answered, as he chuckled. "Why doesn't Luffy pay for himself? He gets a decent check, so what's the problem?"

"Nami is the problem…" Ace sighed. "She confiscates Luffy's money and puts them on a bank account… Like, all of it… He never sees any money and I'm stuck paying for everything…"

"Are you trying to make me give you a raise?"

"Will you?" Ace laughed.

"I might, if you'll get me a new model," Sabo answered, laughing as well.

Ace's eyes immediately went to sempai, looking at him with his professional eyes. With some practice, he could surely be a good one, Ace finally decided.

"Hey, you still there?"

"Ah, yes… Rejoice, I have someone in mind, I'll make sure he's available on Friday," Ace said, still evaluating Marco critically.

"He? You don't have a female? We've got enough males as it is…"

"If, after Friday, you'll think he's no good, then I'll look for a girl," Ace smiled mischievously.

"Is that so? He better be good," Sabo said. "Ok, got to go, I'll pick you up on Friday."

"Bye," Ace pressed the red button and turned to sempai with a wicked smile on his lips. "Seempai, are you free on Friday?" Ace said, dragging out the 'e'.

"Why?" Marco said, eyeing him suspiciously.

"I just need you to do me a favor and meet up with me on Friday after classes."

"Why?"

"Come on, sempai. Count it as hanging out with friends," Ace said. "It's a deal. Now I have to run, I need to get my books, see you around sempai," he looked at the clock on the wall and went to his classroom, leaving Marco staring in confusion.

The lab was pretty uneventful, Ace was teamed up with Law and they were a good combo. After the lab they had lunch, but Ace found that one of his lunchboxes was missing. He sighed, already knowing the culprit, and ate his lunch quickly. Through the social studies Ace found himself thinking about one thing – Marco-sempai said he owed him an all-you-can-eat buffet. After fantasizing for an entire lesson, Ace finally decided – he'll have that buffet today, if sempai agrees. Thus, after the lesson, he took out his phone and sent Marco sms:

'**Remember you said you owed me a buffet? I'd like to collect :D**'

Soon the answer came:

'**Today?'**

'**Yeah, my lunch was stolen, so… XD**'

'**Someone stole your lunch? O_o**'

'**And I even know who :D'**

'**Fine by me, I'll meet you at the school gate after lessons**'

'**Thanks a lot! You are a savior! XD**'

Ace smiled at his phone, now he should keep this quiet and the words 'an all-you-can-eat buffet' won't reach Luffy's bat ears. When it came to food, Luffy could hear people whispering about it two classrooms away. If he ever found out about it, Ace's date with Marco-sempai could be flushed down the toilet. 'Wait, a date?' Ace straightened, as he was almost lying in his chair, waiting for biology to start.

If you looked at it from that kind of angle, it certainly was. As a matter of fact, Ace was actually dating sempai this week, so it could count as a date. If it was indeed a date (and it was Ace who asked sempai out) he had to think it through, like maybe going somewhere after the buffet… He'd have to mind his manners, when he ate too… Suddenly Ace felt he didn't want that buffet. He'll screw everything up, Marco already thinks he's a food-crazed idiot… 'Wait, why am I worried?' Ace frowned. Why did he even care what Marco thought of him? He'll dump Ace in the end of the week anyway.

* * *

**Ok, so a short note. Chapter five will be published as soon as I finish writing chapter six. I found that it helps me to keep writing. This time I won't promise an update time, but lets hope that it will happen within two next weeks. Honestly, the only reason I published this story was because I already started on chapter four. **

**Anyways, thanks a lot for all the reviews and favourites and follows, they make me really happy.**

**I hope to see you soon,**

**Rhe.**


	5. Tuesday (Part 2)

**Happy Easter!**

**In the winds of the holiday, I decided to add a bit of my Marco/Ace trivia. Their official song, in my opinion, is Die Young by Ke$ha :D **

**Beta'ed by aqua-empress, the most efficient beta I've ever met. It's like she sits there 24/7, waiting for the next chapter to arrive XD Thanks a lot, hon!**

**Disclaimer: no, not mine... and I doubt that it will ever be.**

* * *

**.**

Whoever lived up in heaven hated Marco. Hated him enough to take his brain, throw it out and replace it by a useless piece of crap. At least, that was what Marco was thinking, as he resisted banging his head against his desk – it could result in even more brain damage than he already had. Why the hell did he agree to go out with Ace today after school when he was a) tired, b) brainless and c) got aroused every time he saw his kouhai, was a question of the day. Hell, maybe even a question of the year, given that there were only a couple months left of it and that Marco doubted that he'd be in as much trouble as he was now.

After some thinking, Marco corrected himself – he wasn't brainless, he was brain-dead. He had a good brain before, so he could only assume that all his brain cells decided to commit suicide sometime yesterday. Or, rather, the rational ones, which was the majority. The ones left were complete idiots and good-for-nothings.

Marco sighed loudly and stared at his religion teacher. Not a thing of what the teacher said made it to the part of the brain which stored everything important. Fortunately, whatever brain cells he had left, had enough sense in them to at least fake his usual expression (even though it was always bored, now he had to concentrate to not to look extra bored, because there was a huge difference).

But really, what was he thinking yesterday, promising Ace an all-you-can-eat buffet? He wasn't bothered by the economic aspects of it – it was, after all, an all-you-can-eat buffet, he was afraid (yes, Marco could admit that he was afraid!) of the social aspects of it. Meaning, he'll have to spend time with Ace and appear friendly and nice, while he would probably undress his kouhai in his mind. It won't be hard to do – he remembered every damn detail because of that photo…

Marco sighed and stared out the window. His execution was nearing – the bell would ring in twenty minutes. Maybe he could ask Robin to kill him, she'd agree out of pure curiosity. Although that way he'd be in for one slow and painful death… Still, he'd be spared the humiliation, so he had twenty minutes to decide. Death and torture or just torture… At least he'd be dead after Robin was done with him and he was sure that she won't get in trouble for killing him… If he chose the option number two, namely going out with Ace, he'd be tortured for the whole week. That was six days, including today. Robin wouldn't torture him for six days, right? Maybe a day or two and then just kill him, right? Yup, option Robin it was.

Maybe he could just cancel it, say that something came up and just walk away as fast as he could? Immediately, Pops' face appeared in Marco's mind and no, Pops didn't raise cowards. Marco sighed again. He got himself into this mess, so he should get out of it by himself. Thus, when, in fifteen minutes, the lesson would end, he'd go out and get it over with.

Marco kept staring at the clock as it ticked away the minutes. Normally, he'd be happy to finish early and there was no practice today, so he would have time to, as he once put it, play amoeba. Playing amoeba meant that he would lie on the couch as a boneless heap with minimum brain activity. Although that only happened when he escaped school before those he dated decided to take him out. That was it – if he ever survived this week, he would stop dating altogether.

Staring at the clock didn't help much – it even felt like that damn clock picked up the pace and, before Marco knew it, the bell rung, signaling the end of the lesson and the school day for some. He started to gather his things slowly, in hope to postpone his torture.

"Best of luck," Robin said with a smile, as she watched Marco shuffle his things.

Marco just glared at her, grabbing his bag and walking out of the classroom. Robin had a club practice today, otherwise (Marco was dead sure of it) she'd walk him to the gate and make fun of him. She'd probably say something in front of Ace just to embarrass Marco too. Or both of them. Marco could clearly imagine Robin saying 'Have fun boys, just remember to use protection!' He didn't know about Ace, but Marco was dead sure that if she said that, he wouldn't be able to keep himself from blushing.

Marco made a detour to the bathroom just to drag out the time. He was there for about ten minutes, eight of which he spent staring at himself in the mirror and wondering if he committed suicide here, would he haunt the school like in the urban legends. He knew for the fact that the cooking club thought themselves haunted, because food disappeared suddenly, but he was sure that there was some other explanation to it.

When Marco walked out of the school, he saw Ace waiting for him at the gate. He sighed again and walked over there. Just outside the gate were several girls, discussing something. Whatever it was, it had Ace shaking with silent laughter.

"What's up?" Marco asked, curious.

Ace just waved his hand, motioning Marco to follow him. Once they were far enough, the boy burst out laughing.

"What's this all about?" Marco asked again.

"They were from the cooking club… and they discussed how yesterday the food disappeared right in front of them…" Ace choked out between the laughs.

"I take it you know where it went," Marco couldn't keep from smiling.

"Yeah… I do… It went the same way my lunch went today…" Ace laughed.

"And?"

"Luffy should really be a ninja in the future…" Ace finally could straighten himself, although he still chuckled.

"You mean, your brother is the ghost that's haunting the cooking club?" Marco laughed out loud.

"I can't believe Sanji haven't caught him yet…" Ace laughed.

"He stole food from Sanji?" Marco was impressed – not everyone could do something like that.

"Only because Luffy uses Nami as a distraction," Ace explained. Nami went with it because that way she didn't have to spend money on feeding Luffy.

"Damn… That's… clever!" Marco had to give it to Ace's brother – he was smarter than he looked.

"I know," Ace chuckled. "So, where are we going?"

"Somewhere central," Marco answered – he had no idea, which restaurants had an all-you-can-eat buffet, but he figured that they could just look for something interesting.

"Ah, so you have no idea?" Ace raised his eyebrows.

"No."

"Well, lucky for you, I have. If you don't mind pizza, that is," Ace looked at Marco, questioning.

Marco remembered ten pizza cartons and shrugged – if Ace wanted, he could have his beloved pizza, Marco wasn't picky when it came to food.

"Good, I know this place, they have a pizza buffet and it's not expensive either," Ace smiled. "Plus that's about the only good pizzeria in the city, at least in my opinion."

"Is it the same place you ordered from yesterday?" Marco asked just in case.

"Yeah, it's not far from here either."

Marco nodded, motioning for Ace to lead the way. As it turned out, it wasn't all that hard to be around Ace. It was a bit like thinking about the elephant – you tell yourself to not to think about it, but you still do, but when it's in front of you – you can look at it, you don't need to think. The elephant in this case walked slightly ahead, leading the way. After a minute, the elephant decided to break the silence.

"Hey, sempai, why did you chose judo?"

"There wasn't anything else to choose from," Marco shrugged. "What about you?"

"Because no matter how big and strong they are, I will defeat them," Ace answered, not looking at Marco.

"They?"

When Ace didn't answer, Marco remembered what Pops told him yesterday, about the Grey Terminal. It made sense that Ace wanted to learn to fight properly. Especially if there were real thugs around. It was surprising that if Ace grew up at the Grey Terminal, he could function so well among the people at Enies Lobby. Speaking of which.

"Why didn't you go to Mariejois?" he asked.

"You saw that, didn't you?" Ace chuckled. "Then you know the answer."

"Really? Just for an extra hour of sleep in the morning?" Marco frowned.

"Yup, just an extra hour of sleep," Ace turned his head and looked Marco in the eyes. "It's one hell of a difference."

"If I had the choice, I would have chosen Mariejois," Marco glared back at Ace, the anger from yesterday came back, so the words came out harsher then they should have.

"Me too, if I had the choice," Ace laughed. "However, my doctor had a completely different idea."

Marco's frown deepened. He didn't quite understand, it felt like he was missing something important.

"Basically, if I went to Mariejois, the amount of stress and the lack of that extra hour in the morning would have put me in the hospital, on the psych ward, if I remember correctly," Ace explained with a smile. "So yeah, I need my beauty sleep."

Marco nodded, showing that he understood. Damn Robin, for knowing everything and not telling him. Also, he was an idiot, for jumping to conclusions and assuming Ace was just a spoiled brat. Robin did tell him yesterday about Ace being sick, but he didn't remember what it was. Marco remembered, though, that it made Ace pass out randomly during the day. He should watch out for it, just in case.

"Here we are, not too far from school, right?" Marco was brought back, when Ace stopped and pointed at the pizzeria across the street. The place didn't look too big, nor did it attract much attention. After taking a closer look, Marco thought the place looked cosy and inviting. He decided that he liked it.

The inside of the place was in warm tones, with comfy sofas and nice, clean tables. There were several customers, having their late lunch. Ace went straight to one table by the window and left his bag on one of the chairs.

"Come on, sempai, here you have to pay before you start eating," Ace said, turning to Marco.

Marco shrugged and put his bag on another chair. He found his wallet and went to the cashier, who looked oddly familiar.

"No way… I thought for sure that after yesterday, you'd never want to see a pizza in your life," said the cashier to Marco.

"Hi, Usopp! Didn't know you'd be working today," Ace came over and smiled at the cashier.

"Man, that's classical conditioning, you'll get him running over you again in no time," the cashier told to Marco, frowning.

"What do you mean?" Marco blinked.

"You are encouraging him to run you over again, if you'll buy him food."

"Ah, no, this is completely unrelated, I lost a bet," Marco explained. "Plus, he already ran me over today, so I think I'm safe for now."

"Really now, Ace? Why are you so dead set on sending this poor guy to the hospital?" the cashier turned to Marco's kouhai, after giving Marco a look full of pity.

"Hey, it's not my fault sempai gets in my way when I'm in a hurry!" Ace defended himself.

Marco just rolled his eyes at that and paid for the buffet. The price was, indeed, reasonable, like Ace said.

"Just don't run this time, Ace," the cashier chuckled, giving Marco his change.

"Can't promise anything – old habits die hard," Ace laughed loudly and went to the buffet.

Marco nodded to the cashier, put his wallet into his back pocket and followed his kouhai. For a moment he just stood there, watching the comedy show called 'Ace and the buffet'. The amount of pizza on Ace's plate grew quickly, until it became a small mountain. Marco decided to ignore it, after all he had a lot of siblings and saw a lot of weird eating habits. He took a plate for himself and chose a couple of slices from different pizzas.

"What do you want to drink, sempai?" Ace asked, already empty-handed, his mountain of pizza was back at their table.

"I don't care, anything," Marco shrugged, as he went back to their table. He sat down and stared at the mountain. The topmost slice was slowly sliding down towards Marco and he stared at it with interest, waiting for it to fall. Ace came back right on time to see the slice slide down the mountain and onto Marco's plate.

"What's this, sempai? Are you stealing my food with telekinesis?" Ace asked, putting down two glasses with cola.

"No," Marco answered, still looking at the mountain – another slice was sliding down in his direction.

"Looks more like a 'yes' to me," Ace laughed, catching the slice and biting it. He sat down and looked at Marco with a smile.

"What did he mean by saying 'don't run'?" Marco asked, busying himself with his pizza – anything to not to look at his kouhai.

"Oh, that's because when I was younger, like ten or something, me, Sabo and Luffy did a lot of 'eat-and-run's," it came out somewhat muffled and Marco looked up from his plate, only to see half the mountain already gone. Marco blinked – he barely ate half his slice, there must be something wrong with his perception for sure. Nobody could eat that fast. "Luffy always left an 'Iou treasure' note."

Marco blinked again – right in front of him the mountain dissolved to nothing in a matter of seconds. He looked up at Ace, but his kouhai looked pretty normal, chewing thoughtfully.

"I'll go get seconds," Ace said, once he was done chewing.

Marco followed him with his eyes, looking completely confused. It was humanly impossible to eat so much in so little time. Just in case, Marco looked under the table and on the sofa Ace sat on, but he saw no trace of that mountain (except for the slice that escaped to his plate). Meanwhile, Ace came back with another mountain, albeit a smaller one.

"You looked confused," his kouhai said, as he sat down.

"Um…" Marco didn't know what to say. "Seconds?"

At that Ace's face became bright red.

"Y-yeah, why?" Ace said, looking anywhere but Marco.

"I'm just… I'm trying… I'm sorry, I must have seen wrong or something," Marco looked at his clock just in case, but the time was what he expected it to be, they haven't been in the pizzeria longer than ten minutes. "I'm sorry, don't mind me," Marco blinked again, shaking his head.

However, in a second, he changed his mind – he didn't see anything wrong. This mountain was dissolving as fast as the first one. Marco sat there and stared at Ace's plate, completely baffled. His mind was playing tricks on him for sure, there was no other explanation. Marco looked up at Ace, but there was nothing strange with the boy, except that his face was still flushed. 'Cute,' Marco's inner voice said and Marco nodded absently in agreement.

Ace's eyes met Marco's for a moment, as Ace took a bite of pizza. Marco's eyebrows rose, when Ace averted his gaze, his face tomato red. Marco looked down at Ace's plate, his own completely forgotten. Ace's plate was empty once again and Marco shook his head. He rubbed his eyes, just in case, but the result was the same.

"What the… I must be seeing things…" Marco muttered under his breath. Something didn't add here, he just had to figure out what. His train of thought was interrupted by laughter close by and Marco saw the cashier make his way over to them. Marco stared at him, unsure if that man knew the answer.

"I take it this is your first time," the cashier chuckled. "You look like you've seen an UFO."

"Usopp," Ace said, pleadingly, getting even redder in the face, although Marco was sure that was impossible.

"What? Did you see the look on his face? He barely touched his own food, trying to figure out where yours went," the cashier, Usopp, was smiling widely.

Marco frowned, when both Ace and Usopp looked at him, equally curious.

"I guess you haven't met Luffy, or you would have understood where the food went," Usopp said.

"Would that make a difference?" Marco asked, getting more confused by the second.

"Oh, trust me, it makes all the difference in the world. He's a black hole."

Marco looked at Ace for any kind of confirmation and Ace nodded, his blush gradually receding.

"So?"

"Well, your food wouldn't have been untouched, if you had Luffy anywhere near you. Ace here needs to keep his shape up, or he'll starve."

"Wait a sec, you mean he," Marco pointed at Ace, "ate two mini-mountains of pizza in less than a couple of minutes?"

It was all that was needed to make Ace tomato-red again, Marco was dead sure that he could fry eggs on the boy's face, it being that red.

"More or less," Usopp said proudly.

Marco's brain short circuited again – he couldn't put such eating habits and the body he saw together. With such eating habits Ace should have been at least four times the size he was. Not that Marco complained, he liked that body a lot, he just had hard time doing the math. Ace must have had one hell of metabolism or he trained like crazy. Those were the only explanations Marco could come up with. Or both, Marco added after some thinking.

"Don't you have work to do?" Marco was brought back again, when Ace tried to shove his friend away from their table.

"I do, but this is much more fun," Usopp answered with a smile.

"Will you go away?" Ace said, still red in the face.

"That was rude!" the cashier laughed, but seeing as Ace got up to drag him away from the table, he lifted his hands in defeat and retreated back to the counter.

Marco blinked, surprised and looked at his kouhai, who was clearly uncomfortable. He wasn't going to ask why he chased away his friend, because if it was Marco… well, he would have done the same. He was lucky Robin had her practice today, or he'd be the same color as Ace.

"He was really annoying," Ace said sheepishly. "I'm not like that all the time…"

"Friends have their good and bad sides," Marco chuckled, deciding that if he spent more time on thinking about black hole called Ace, he won't have any time to eat his pizza. Thus, Marco continued to eat, as if nothing happened.

Ace nodded, drinking some of his cola. Marco decided that if Ace wanted to take another helping of pizza, he won't stare, no matter the speed it will disappear with. However, Ace didn't go to get any more food. Marco smiled – apparently Ace would rather die than eat in front of him ever again. Of course, Marco was the one to blame, but it was the first time he ever saw somebody eat that fast.

The rest of lunch was spent in silence as Ace refused to speak and Marco was busy chewing. After Marco was done, they said goodbye to Usopp and left. Right outside the pizzeria, as if he felt it, Marco got a call from Thatch.

"Yeah?" Marco answered, thinking about everything that could possibly be wrong – Thatch never called him at this time of Tuesdays because he had classes.

"Hey, are you free now?" Thatch asked.

"It depends," Marco said, eyeing Ace and trying to figure the importance of this 'date'.

"I need you to pick Izo up from school, because I can't and Pops is stuck at some meeting… Vista and Jozu had work today, so they couldn't come."

"What happened? Why does he need picking up?" Marco frowned, dreading the answer.

"He got into a fight with some jerks who didn't like his style. He won, of course, but he got suspended for three days, including today," Thatch explained.

"Why didn't you call me right away?"

"I got a text from Robin saying that you were busy, so I tried them first."

"How the fuck did she get your number?" Marco went cold.

"No idea, but, apparently, Pops, Vista and Jozu got the same message, so I'd guess she has all our numbers…"

"How did that happen?!"

"Like I said – no idea. So, are you free enough?"

"Yeah, I'll pick him up," Marco sighed.

"Your friend is scary."

"Tell me about it…"

"I have to run, see you later."

Marco just hung up on Thatch without responding. Robin was scary. Or, rather, her ability to acquire all sorts of information was scary.

"I take it you have to run," Ace said, tilting his head to the side.

"Yeah, I need to pick my brother up from school because he got suspended and I'm the only one available."

"No worries, I totally get it," Ace laughed.

"Does your brother gets in trouble often?" Marco raised his eyebrows.

"You have no idea," Ace laughed loudly.

"I'm sorry I have to run," Marco felt he needed to apologize – most of his dates got angry when he had a family emergency like that.

"What are you talking about? Shoo! Go get your brother before he gets into more trouble!" Ace waved his hands in dismissive manner. "If it was me, I'd be running right about now," he said, because Marco just stood there and stared at Ace in shock. It was a first for him – not only his date didn't get angry, but urged him to get going.

"Right, see ya!" Marco finally nodded and turned away.

"See you tomorrow!" Marco turned his head a bit to see Ace standing there and waving him goodbye with a smile. He raised his own hand and waved.

(^_^)

.

Later that evening Ace was sitting on his bed with his laptop and watched series with facebook open. For the lack of anything better to watch, he was watching some of the newer episodes of The Simpsons. Ace had to give it to the scenarists – after twenty plus seasons the show didn't get boring. Ace's favorite was Grandpa, he was just too hilarious.

Between the episodes Ace checked facebook, but there wasn't much going on there. At least, that was true twenty minutes ago. Now, Ace stared at it with wide eyes and slacked jaw in complete horror. Making a complete fool out of him apparently wasn't enough, someone upstairs just had to completely destroy Wednesday morning too. There was a simple update from Marco – '**Got a call from coach, we move tomorrow's practice from afternoon to morning. If I don't see you tomorrow at six, consider yourself dead.'**

Ace fumbled after his phone and looked for Marco among his contacts. Sending a message took way too long time, so Ace called instead. It took only four signals for Marco to answer.

"Sempai, what is the meaning of this?!" Ace didn't care about the fact that he raised his voice, he was too angry.

"Ace? What do you want?" sempai sounded confused.

"What do you mean what do I want?! What the fuck? What the hell is wrong with you?!"

"Unless you have a good reason to speak to me in that tone, I'm going to slaughter you tomorrow."

"That's what I'm talking about! What the fuck!"

There was a silence on the other end for a minute, giving Ace enough time to come to his senses and wish for a quick and painless death. He just yelled and swore at Marco-sempai, he will die tomorrow for sure.

"I see…" sempai finally said. "Sorry about that, but there is nothing I can do, the coach moved the practice," there was some more silence, because Ace was still mentally writing his will and didn't dare to breathe. "Do you have a hard time waking up or staying awake in the morning?" Marco asked.

After a minute Ace understood that he was supposed to say something, but he couldn't remember what sempai said because he was too busy writing his will.

"Um… Can you repeat what you said?" Ace dared to ask only because if he hung up, he'd be dead for sure.

Sempai repeated his words; oddly enough he didn't sound angry, just concerned.

"Both, actually," Ace answered. "Luffy normally wakes me, because I sleep through my alarm…"

"How about I pick you up tomorrow morning? Just in case," sempai suggested.

Had Ace eaten something at that moment, he would have choked.

"I'm sorry?"

"I asked, if I should pick you up in the morning, just in case."

"Um… That would be great, but I don't want to inconvenience you."

"The only way you can inconvenience me is by not showing up for practice. That way I'd have to kick your ass when it's not even your fault, so give me an address."

Ace, still in shock, just rambled his address out without thinking.

"Good, I'll be at your house quarter to five. Go to sleep now."

"S-sure…"

Ace didn't get to say anything else, because sempai hung up. He stared at the ceiling, amazed. Not only did he get away with yelling and swearing at sempai, he also got an alarm to wake him up for sure. He just forgot to ask what the catch was.

(^_^)

.

In the Newgate household Marco retreated to the bathroom and locked the door with record speed. He would have loved to talk to Ace some more, but Thatch just had to walk in when he set the time. Of course that buffoon had to raise a ruckus and get Marco chased to the bathroom, in order to hide from his overly curious brothers. His only hope was that Pops would chase them away and let Marco go to bed early.

* * *

**I'm grateful for all the reviews, favourites and follows. I'll try to answer the reviews from now on, because I suck at that.**

**Hope to see you soon.**

**Rhe.**

**PS. Won't be as soon as one could hope, I have an exam on Thursday next week. Plus I have to finish next chapter too, it turned out that a lazy person is always a lazy person despite the circumstances. Not that I didn't know that...**


	6. Wednesday (Part 1)

**Sup!**

**I decided that I'll add a 'song of the chapter' basically because I want to. This chapter's song is _The Whole World Is Watching_ by Within Temptation. **

**Beta'ed by aqua-empress, despite all odds. Giant thank you to you, dear ^_^**

**Disclaimer: not mine and won't ever be... Dang it, I don't even own the initial plot... :(**

* * *

Wednesday morning didn't turn out the way Ace expected it to turn out. First and foremost, he underestimated his ability to sleep through anything. Second thing he underestimated was Luffy. Ace honestly didn't expect his brother to use him as a trampoline to wake him up. Third thing was also Luffy. The mysterious processes in his brother's head will forever be unexplored, because Ace couldn't fathom why the hell did Luffy bring sempai to Ace's room and allowed him to watch a show called 'Wake Ace Up In The Morning'.

When Ace finally managed to throw his brother off of the bed, it was already too late to do anything which could save his name. Or, rather, nothing he would ever do from now on will ever restore it. To say that noticing Marco-sempai by the door was embarrassing was to say nothing. Compared to this yesterday's fiasco at the pizzeria was small and insignificant.

"S-sempai…" Ace stammered, beet-red in the face.

"Morning," said Marco casually. "We don't have much time, so get dressed. I'll wait for you downstairs."

Wide awake for the first time in his life, Ace quickly got out of the bed and rushed around, putting his clothes on. Ace was lucky he prepared everything in the evening, so his bags were already packed and his uniform was ready to wear. All in all Ace managed get himself ready in about five minutes, which was a first for him, but considering the circumstances Ace really wished it wasn't.

He ran down the stairs, dumped his bags in front of the door, and went to the kitchen. True enough, there was Marco-sempai, sitting on a chair and eyeing the coffee Luffy made with interest. Luffy himself was nowhere to be seen, but, judging by the sounds upstairs, Ace could determine that he couldn't find his bag again.

"Did you eat breakfast, sempai?" Ace asked, opening the fridge.

"No," Marco replied simply, studying the fridge intently.

Ace took a step back and examined the fridge but he didn't see anything wrong with it, nor did he see anything dirty on it, so he just shrugged and went for the freezer. There he had pancakes he froze just for such an occasion, namely when he didn't have the time to make breakfast. Now all he had to do was to heat them up in a microwave and they were good to go. He just needed to check something.

"Do you eat pancakes, sempai? They are homemade, not from the shop, I just stored them for when I don't have the time to make breakfast," Ace explained, getting the container out of the freezer.

"Sure thing," Marco answered, still examining the fridge. "Say, why do you have a lock on your fridge?"

"That is to keep the food safe from Luffy," Ace answered getting the plates ready.

"Are you starving your brother?"

That brought a wave of uncontrollable laughter over Ace. Starve Luffy? Was that even possible?

"Ace! Where's my bag?" Luffy yelled from upstairs.

"Have you checked under the bed?" Ace yelled back, dividing pancakes between two plates.

"It's not there!" Luffy informed after a moment.

"Did you look in the living room?"

"Not yet!"

The whole house seemed to shake, as Luffy rolled down the stairs, sounding like a herd of elephants. Something crashed in the living room (Ace suspected that Luffy stumbled over something and fell) and then he yelled:

"It's not here either!"

"Sempai, can you please look under the table? Can you see a bag there?" Ace asked, putting the first portion of pancaked in the micro.

"Yeah, it's here," Marco said, after checking under the table.

"Luffy, it's here!"

"Haaaaai!"

While the first portion was heating up, Ace took out some jam and syrup to eat with pancakes, orange juice, milk and some meat to keep Luffy at bay. Container with meat got an odd look from sempai, but he said nothing, so Ace continued preparing breakfast. He poured a cup of coffee for himself and sempai, leaving place for milk, in case sempai didn't drink it black. Ace also took out sugar, because he would need it anyway, and three glasses for the orange juice. Luffy trotted into the kitchen at the same time as he put coffee in front of sempai, earning a happy 'thank you'.

"Ace, breakfast!" Luffy exclaimed excitedly.

Ace turned around and saw Luffy sit right by Marco's side. Fortunately, he knew exactly what that meant.

"Luffy, move away from sempai," Ace said strictly.

"It's okay, I don't mind," Marco said, waving his hand dismissingly.

"This is for your own good," Ace assured. "Luffy, move away and sit over there," he pointed to a chair as far away from sempai as possible.

"Eeeh? But he's okay with it!" Luffy whined.

"I don't think it's needed," Marco said at the same time.

"Luffy, sempai is not going to share his food with you, so move away and sit over there," Ace pointed to the far away chair again.

"You're not going to share with me?" Luffy looked at Marco as if he, at the very least, admitted of murdering his beloved grandma.

"No, he's not, so go sit over there. If I see you trying to steal sempai's food, you won't get any meat today."

"Not fair!" Luffy whined, but moved away to sit where Ace wanted him to sit.

The first portion of pancakes was ready, so Ace took it out and put in front of Marco, telling Luffy to get the cutlery. Ace turned away for a moment to put Luffy's portion in the microwave and when he turned around again, to keep an eye on Luffy, he barely made it.

"Luffy, meat!"

Luffy's head jerked up at the same time as his hand retreated from sempai's plate. Sempai was naïvely pouring some juice for them. Luffy eyed the container in Ace's hands with an attention of a german shepherd.

"Go sit over there, Luffy," Ace pointed where again, this time a bit of fried meat in his hand.

Luffy did what he was told to do obediently, eyes trained on the meat in Ace's hand. Ace suddenly felt very awkward – his friends knew Luffy well enough to know that this was needed, if there were guests, but they were also good at protecting their own food. Marco-sempai was a completely new person to their family dynamics and Ace didn't even want to imagine how all this looked to him.

Ace snapped back to reality and noticed that while he was spaced out he lost Luffy's attention, who was now soundlessly moving in Marco's direction.

"Luffy, catch!"

Both Luffy and Marco looked at him, surprised. Luffy jumped up and caught the meat with his mouth, as Marco stared at him – he didn't notice when the boy got so close to him.

Lucky for all three of them Luffy's pancakes were done in a second, so Ace put some meat from the container on them (Marco frowned at that) and put them where Luffy was supposed to sit. Then, moving as quickly, as he could, Ace prepared three sandwiches for himself. It took Luffy all of a thirty seconds to finish twenty pancakes and Ace was proud to have finished making his sandwiches by that time.

"Sempai, you should eat, because we have to go soon," Ace said, noticing that Marco was spacing out. "Luffy, meat!" he threw another piece of meat at Luffy, to keep him away from the easy target.

"Right," Marco said and focused on his own food.

In the end Ace had to sacrifice one and a half sandwich in order to let his sempai to eat in peace. When Luffy protested the fact that he didn't get a bento (Ace didn't have time to prepare them yesterday), Ace had to drag his brother out of the kitchen, telling him to get one at Nami's. They made an arrangement yesterday – since Ace didn't trust Luffy to lock the house, they had to go out at the same time. Thus Luffy was supposed to go to Nami and walk with her to school later.

When they finally got out of the house, Ace could finally exhale. Luffy wasn't a difficult person normally, but today, for whatever reason, he decided to argue and Ace was now sporting a headache. Explaining things to Luffy was one of his least favourite things to do. He loved his brother, he really did, but Ace wasn't blessed with the divine patience Sabo possessed.

"I am so sorry about all this," Ace said tiredly, when he and Marco were on the bus stop; Luffy didn't need to take the bus to get to Nami, so he separated from them right after they left the house.

"It's alright, I kind of forced myself on you two," sempai said with a small smile. "Do you live by yourselves?"

"Most of the time – yeah, gramps spends all the time at his marine base and only comes here on big holidays or when he gets a call from school. Because he's absent a lot, he arranged Makino to come a couple times a week to clean and do some chores," Ace replied, rubbing his temple – the headache was receding slowly with a lack of the stimulus, namely Luffy.

Sempai just hummed, showing that he understood. They waited for the bus in silence, Ace was busy marvelling about the fact that this was the first time in his life that he got up and wasn't sleepy at all. Although he suspected that the reason for that was Marco-sempai. Ace fought the urge to face-palm, or just curl under the bench and die from embarrassment. If he counted the things he did since Monday, it was a miracle that sempai didn't run away when he spotted him. Firstly, Ace run sempai over and didn't even apologise properly. Secondly, there was that thing at the dojo, when he completely lost control and attacked sempai. Thirdly, he run sempai over (AGAIN!) on Tuesday and he was lucky that he didn't carry a cup of coffee. Fourthly, there was his epic failure at the pizzeria – was it so difficult to keep his manners and eat like normal human being? No, it wasn't and Ace knew that he could do that on special occasions, but yesterday he didn't seem to think about such a minor thing. And, finally, this morning. Why he was so dead set on humiliating himself in front of sempai was something Ace could not fathom.

The bus pulled over and Ace surfaced from all his dark thoughts that threatened to drown him. His challenge of the day would be to not to humiliate himself even more than he already did. Although, somehow, he didn't believe that he would be able to do that – hell, he'll probably run into sempai after the first lesson on his way to cafeteria for coffee.

Ace walked into the bus, which was almost empty. 'Right, who'd actually go somewhere at 5:40…' Ace thought, taking a place by the window. Sempai took one behind him, because Ace was an idiot. He immediately wanted to bang his head against the seat in front of him – by force of habit he put his bags on the sit next to him and now it was already too late to take them away.

Suddenly Ace felt a familiar shiver and his last thought before he passed out was 'Out of all places it just had to be the bus…' When he came around, he wasn't on the bus anymore. He was sitting at the bus stop by the school. Right in front of him was Marco-sempai, who looked thoughtful, as he calculated something in his mind. Sempai's gaze wandered between Ace, his bags and Sempai's own bags, apparently trying to figure out how to transport everything to school without looking like a packing mule.

"Good, you're awake," sempai noted, smiling.

"I'm sorry," Ace muttered, rubbing his face. What the hell happened to 'don't humiliate yourself anymore'?

"You don't need to apologise, it's not like it was your fault," sempai said kindly.

Ace looked at him with suspicion. This was awfully kind, coming from Marco-sempai. Normally he was blunt and much less forgiving. Then Ace blinked and realised – they were supposed to be dating this week. It explained a lot – like, for example, why sempai was so nice and forgiving. When people dated, they often closed their eyes on whatever faults their partners were showing. Like, for example, falling asleep on the bus or running them over two days in a row.

.

(^_^)

.

Marco woke up at what could only be called a 'butt-crack of dawn'. It was still dark outside and the clock showed 3:50 in the morning. What the fuck was wrong with his alarm? He turned on the lamp he had by his bed and noticed something written on his hand. After a closer look and some blinking, Marco could finally read 'wake Ace up 4:45'.

"Fuck damn it…" Marco groaned and sighed.

It took about twenty minutes to get to Ace's by foot – there were no buses at this time of the day. All the normal people were in their beds, sleeping soundly. Marco didn't even think about breakfast – there was no way he'd force something down his throat this early in the morning.

Yesterday, for some reason, he thought that picking Ace up would be a great idea. He seriously doubted that now. It was a terrible idea. Still, he had to do that, because the coach moved the practice and, as a captain, Marco had to be sure that no one was skipping training. Suddenly he had this idea about calling coach and telling him to pick Ace up instead of Marco. That way he'd be able to sleep another hour.

Marco sighed and dragged himself out of bed, brushing all ideas about how to stay in bed away. He got himself into this mess, he'd get out of it by himself, meaning that he'd go to the bathroom and brush his teeth and get dressed and go get Ace.

It didn't take long for Marco to get ready, he had everything prepared yesterday evening, right after he managed to convince his brothers to leave him alone. Sometimes Marco hated having a family full of nosy brothers, who just had to squeeze every drop of information out of him. This time Marco managed to get away with only telling that he had to pick his kouhai up for training. Thatch, being his nosy self, wanted more information, but Pops stepped in and told them to let Marco go to bed.

Moving silently down the stairs, Marco yawned endlessly. This was way, WAY, too early for him to be awake. He tried to make as little noise as possible, but on the second floor he stepped on something small and really painful. Had the inhabitants of the house been at least five years younger, Marco would have thought it was a piece of Lego. He kicked the thing away angrily (it hurt a lot to step on it) and continued down the stairs.

On the first stair, he stepped on several of those things. Marco carefully set his other foot down, testing his hypothesis. There was a lot of those small things. Just to be sure, he bent down and picked one of them. Yup, living in a house full of nosy brothers willing to prank him, was challenging. Especially when it was four in the morning and pitch black on the stairs.

Sighing and moving slowly, Marco walked down the stairs. Every single stair was covered with a lot of Lego-pieces and Marco rolled his eyes, happy that he won't be there at quarter to six, when Pops would go to the kitchen to start the coffee. To say that Pops won't be happy was to say nothing. Marco was sure that whoever thought about pranking him will get what he deserved.

It was chilly outside, but that was to be expected. He stopped for a second, remembering the way he looked up yesterday, turned in the needed direction and started walking. Marco shivered and picked up his pace in hope that he'd warm up in a couple of minutes.

All in all, Marco knew the way, he's been in that neighbourhood before, he just didn't know that Ace lived there. Ace's house was in the nicer part of the East Blue district called Foosha Village. Houses there cost a lot compared to the rest of the district, so only those who were well off lived there. Still, even Foosha Village seemed cheap compared to Sabaody. There the prices were sky-high and only few people could afford to live there. The much-discussed Mariejois High was located there. Sabaody was borderline gated community, just minus the walls. The guards were there and quite a lot of them, if you believed the papers.

Thankfully, there weren't any guards around Foosha Village, because if there were – Marco would have never gotten on the territory. Nobody would have believed that Marco was supposed to wake somebody up at this Godforsaken hour. It took him some time to find the right house since there were houses two and four and then the street ended. On the other side of the street were all the right numbers, but on the even side of the street were only numbers two and four. That was the problem, considering that he had to find the house with a number eight on it.

After five minutes of circling around, Marco decided to try to call Ace. He had to dial Ace two times, because nobody answered on the first one.

"'llo?" slurred somebody, who certainly wasn't Ace.

"Um…" Marco was lost for a moment and looked at the display, in case he called the wrong number, but Ace's name lit up on the screen. "I am supposed to pick Ace up, but I can't find the house…"

Nobody answered, but Marco heard a bang, as if somebody fell out of the bed. He heard footsteps and then he had to move the phone away from his ear, because it sounded like an earthquake. After that there were some more footsteps and a door opening. Marco waited, looking around curiously – he wanted to know what he missed. He certainly didn't expect somebody to show up from behind the bushes in the end of the road. Neither did he expect that someone to wear nothing but a pair of sleeping shorts. Literally. Not even shoes. And he certainly didn't expect that someone to come up to him and drag him in the direction of bushes without saying a word.

That someone was Ace's brother undoubtedly – Marco recognised him from both 'The Most Wanted List' and the Criminal pictures. The boy yawned non-stop as he dragged Marco to the small path hidden behind the bushes. That path led them to another street where were houses with even numbers, including the much needed number eight. Speaking of which, the door to the house was wide open, inviting all and anyone inside.

Marco allowed Ace's brother to drag him into the house, stopping for a moment by the door and allowing Marco to close the door, take off his shoes and leave his bags. Then he was dragged up the stairs, past the room with an open door (Marco saw an unmade bed and guessed it was brother's room) and into a room beside that one.

There, on a king-size bed, sprawled across it on his stomach, was Ace. Sleeping soundly. It kind of baffled Marco, since that earthquake should have woken the dead. What happened next didn't fit into Marco's understanding of the world. Personally, if somebody did that to him, he would have been dead within a couple of seconds. Ace's brother left Marco by the door, climbed up on the bed and started jumping on it, chanting 'Wake up!' Marco's eyebrow twitched, as he tried to refrain from catching the boy and throwing him out of the room. This was downright inhumane way to wake somebody up.

"Luffy, get the fuck off!" Ace finally growled and pushed his brother off of the bed. The boy laughed loudly and left the room, leaving them alone in the room. Marco honestly tried not to stare at half-naked Ace who sat on the bed, his lower half covered by blanket. "S-sempai…" Ace stammered, finally noticing Marco by the door.

"Morning," said Marco, trying to sound casual. He had to get out of this room, because the id (1) told him to forget the training and join Ace on that undoubtedly comfortable bed. "We don't have much time, so get dressed. I'll wait for you downstairs," he managed to say and decided to leave the room, before it was too late.

He went downstairs and went to the kitchen he saw on his way in. There he found Luffy, still in his pyjama shorts, preparing coffee.

"Do you always wake your brother up like that?" Marco just had to ask. Plus he needed to get his mind away from the scenarios his imagination started to create.

"Yup," the boy answered happily, starting the coffee-maker and trotting out of the kitchen.

Marco followed him with his eyes, feeling bad for poor Ace. Maybe he should have woken Ace up himself… 'No, bad idea,' Marco decided, realising that if he got on that bed, there was very slim chance of him actually leaving it. To distract himself, Marco looked around the kitchen.

The kitchen was approximately the same size as the kitchen in Whitebeard's house, not too big and not too small. Right in the middle of it was a 'working area', but judging by chairs around it, it was used as a table. Table by the window was used as dumping ground for newspapers. The cupboards were dark green colour, contrasting nicely against walls painted warm yellow, kind of like butter.

Marco took one of the chairs by the working area, hoping to force himself on some coffee, at the very least. He heard somebody run down the stairs, which actually sounded like somebody ran down the stairs and not like an earthquake. In a moment Ace walked into the kitchen hurriedly and went directly for the fridge. Marco, who didn't pay the fridge any mind before, stared at the fridge with wide eyes. Was that a lock on the fridge?

"Did you eat breakfast, sempai?" Ace asked, opening the fridge.

"No," Marco replied, completely baffled. There was a lock on the fridge! Not something simple, it was an electronic lock, which needed both password and a key. It had to be custom-made, for sure.

Noticing Marco's staring, Ace took a step back and looked at the fridge in confusion. Apparently, he didn't find anything weird, so he just shrugged and went on with whatever he was doing. Marco kept staring at the lock, trying to add two and two. There was a lock on the fridge!

"Do you eat pancakes, sempai? They are homemade, not from the shop, I just stored them for when I don't have the time to make breakfast," Ace asked, while Marco tried to make sense of the lock.

"Sure thing," he said and just had to ask. "Say, why do you have a lock on your fridge?"

"That is to keep the food safe from Luffy," Ace answered as if it was the most common thing to do – to have a lock on the fridge to not to let your younger brother get some food.

"Are you starving your brother?"

Marco could not have foreseen that kind of reaction. Was his question that funny or did he not know the named brother well enough? After some consideration Marco decided that he didn't know them enough. Meanwhile, brothers had a loud conversation about a lost bag. The way Ace sounded, he could guess that they had this conversation every single morning.

"Did you look in the living room?" Ace asked; Marco looked at the two plates with pancakes with worry – somebody wasn't going to get any. Maybe Ace did starve his brother… Or maybe it was Marco who wasn't going to get any.

"Not yet!" came a reply and Marco tensed because the earthquake started again. Or, rather, Ace's brother stomped down the stairs, sounding like a mammoth. After that came a loud crash from what seemed to be a living room and another yell:

"It's not here either!"

"Sempai, can you please look under the table? Can you see a bag there?" Ace asked and Marco turned around to look.

"Yeah, it's here," he confirmed, when he noted a bag right under the dumping ground for newspapers. While he checked, the first part of pancakes went into the microwave. Marco began to worry – somebody, most likely him, wasn't getting breakfast.

"Luffy, it's here!" Ace yelled, startling Marco.

"Haaaaai!"

While Marco was thinking, Ace took out some more stuff from the fridge. Stuff included a container labelled 'MEAT'. Did he plan to feed Marco that? Or what was meat even for? Wasn't this a breakfast? Shaking his head and deciding to let it turn out the way it was going to turn out, Marco almost missed the moment Ace placed a cup full of coffee in front of him.

"Thank you," he said genuinely, he needed some coffee badly. Marco helped himself to some sugar and considered adding milk, but forgot about it the moment Ace's brother sat down next to him. Right next to him. If he sat any closer, he would have sat in Marco's lap. One thing Marco didn't like was other people invading his personal space. He liked his bubble and Ace's brother was invading it at the moment. Marco wanted to say something, but decided against it – this wasn't his house and if Ace's brother wanted to sit next to him, he should just let the boy invade his bubble.

"Ace, breakfast!" Luffy exclaimed excitedly.

"Luffy, move away from sempai," Ace said strictly the second he saw his brother close to him.

"It's okay, I don't mind," Marco went against every cell in his body in order to say that.

"This is for your own good. Luffy, move away and sit over there," Ace pointed to a chair as far away from Marco as possible. Now Marco felt slightly offended and decided to keep the boy close to him, despite the uncomfortable feeling.

"Eeeh? But he's okay with it!" Luffy whined.

"I don't think it's needed," he said in spite of himself.

"Luffy, sempai is not going to share his food with you, so move away and sit over there," Ace pointed to the far away chair again. Marco blinked – now he was sure that someone wasn't going to get food, probably Ace's brother. This was way too confusing for him.

"You're not going to share with me?" the boy stared at Marco, looking shocked and hurt. Something was off here. He just had to figure out what.

"No, he's not, so go sit over there. If I see you trying to steal sempai's food, you won't get any meat today," Ace said with strict voice.

"Not fair!" Luffy whined, but moved and Marco instantly felt relieved. There were only a handful of people who could invade his personal bubble without him being hyper-aware of them.

The first portion of pancakes was done, so Marco felt both relieved and confused, when it ended up in front of him. Realising that he should probably help out, Marco stood up and started pouring juice in three glasses. At the same time Ace put in the second portion and commanded his brother to get the cutlery. Marco almost spilled the juice, when he heard Ace suddenly exclaim:

"Luffy, meat!"

Marco turned to look at the boy only to find him right over his plate. Marco blinked – he had no idea when Luffy got there and why he didn't hear anything.

"Go sit over there, Luffy," Ace pointed where again, this time a bit of fried meat in his hand.

Marco eyed the meat suspiciously. If it wasn't weird before, it certainly was now. Remembering how it ended when he jumped to conclusions, Marco decided to keep his face straight and look normally, until he had more information at hand.

Luffy went back to sitting far away from Marco and Marco continued pouring juice. He was lucky he already sat on his chair and didn't hold anything that could be spilled, because he was completely caught off guard when Ace exclaimed again:

"Luffy, catch!"

Marco looked at Ace in surprise and then at Luffy, who jumped up and caught a bit of meat with his mouth. Marco just stared at the boy, Ace's words about him being a ninja came to mind directly – normally he could feel when people came close to him, even if they tried to sneak up on him. The boy was scary – Marco didn't feel a thing, nothing at all. If this was a combat situation, he would not have noticed the boy until it was too late.

The microwave dinged again and Marco didn't know where to look – on Luffy, who inhaled the pancakes, or Ace, who was moving around with astounding speed. He was a bit surprised (again) by the meat on pancakes, but he was even more surprised when those pancakes went to Luffy – he eliminated the version of Ace not getting any pancakes by default, because he thought he knew his kouhai well enough when it came to food. Apparently, he didn't, because not only did he not get any pancakes, he barely got any breakfast at all. One and a half sandwiches weren't enough to survive the training on and Marco felt a bit guilty about his own content stomach. He also understood now, why Ace laughed when he asked if Ace starved brother. By the looks of if, Ace would have been the one starved if they didn't have the lock on the fridge.

After the breakfast Marco got some more information to work with - he witnessed an argument between brothers. If it was one of his own brothers who started this kind of argument, he would have kicked the shit out of them after a minute. Unlike Marco, Ace was a saint – he did his best to explain everything thoroughly to Luffy, who turned out to be unbelievably dense. After two minutes Marco changed his mind – he would not have kicked the shit out of the person who argued with him like that. He would have simply called for an ambulance and submitted himself to the psych ward. When Ace actually got through to Luffy, Marco nodded to himself – yup, Ace was definitely a saint.

* * *

(1) the id - reference to Freud's structural model of the psyche. It consists of id, ego and super-ego. Think about cartoons, when a devil and an angel popps up on a character's shoulder. Id is that devil, ego is the character and super-ego is the angel.

**Yeah... Personally, I felt that the ending was hasty and slurred, but beta said it was fine (probably because she's too nice). Anyways, you don't need to tell me about it, because I already know that. **

**Thanks a lot for reviews, favourites and follows. *bows***

**Hope to see you soon,**

**Rhe.**


	7. Wednesday (Part 2)

**Sorry for the long wait. I did write, so those who don't know it yet can check out Shallow Waters, another Marco x Ace story :)**

**Song of the chapter: Suna no Oshiro by Kanon Wakeshima. **

**Bete'ed by aqua-empress, even though she's as dead as me :) Thanks hon :)**

**Disclaimer: do I still have to put it in here? When I'll own OP I'll let the whole world know that.**

* * *

Ace didn't know what to do with himself. He just wanted to go somewhere quiet and bang his head against a wall. He was definitely an Idiot. With a capital I. Why the hell did he ever ask sempai out? Ever since Ace did that, there wasn't a day he didn't humiliate himself in front of the said sempai. Apparently the whole waking up thing, which Ace personally wanted to erase from his memory, wasn't enough. Oh, no, not even close. There was him falling asleep on the bus, an incident Ace wanted to wipe away badly, because he felt like banging his head against the nearest object every time he thought about how he got off the bus. Frankly, Ace had no idea what did he ever do to deserve such humiliation.

After the bus came the training and yes, Marco-sempai decided to spar with him again, which resulted in nothing good. Basically, he was turned into a pretzel and was questioned as to what happened to him and why didn't he fight. After the Monday, there was no way Ace would let his control go inside the dojo, which disappointed sempai to no end. Whatever you did, you didn't want to disappoint Marco-sempai. Sempai said nothing, but looked at him in a way that made him want to disappear from the face of the earth. But that wasn't all, not at all.

Grand finale came a bit later. Namely after the first lesson. There was only one thing that could happen and it just had to happen. Since he woke up early, he needed his coffee, but he had other needs too. Thus, after a quick visit to the restroom, Ace hurried to the cafeteria so that he could buy himself a cup of coffee before the next lesson. Key word here was 'hurried'. Namely ran. And it just had to happen that in that exact moment Marco-sempai was walking out of the cafeteria with a cup of coffee in his hands. Somehow, Ace wished he ran sempai over this time as well. It would not have been as embarrassing as what happened.

He noticed sempai last second. By wide eyes and sempai's posture, he could guess that this was a surprise for him as well. Ace did not run into sempai, oh no. He spun around, trying to change his trajectory, but the only thing he succeeded in was to fall like a stock. Not only did he fell, he also rolled a bit, making sempai jump over him, which resulted in sempai spilling some coffee anyway, although only on the floor.

Thankfully, sempai was a polite person, so he didn't even smile, unlike other people who got to witness his humiliation. Sempai kindly asked if he was fine and even thanked him for consideration, which didn't make Ace feel any better. Frankly, he'd sell his soul to the devil if he could turn back time and keep his stupid mouth shut on Monday. Hell, he'd agree to eternal servitude for erasing those memories from every person who got to see him humiliate himself this week.

It was only natural that at the moment Ace sat behind his desk, his arms on the deck and his face on top of them, on verge of nervous breakdown. Every time he thought that he could not embarrass himself anymore and voila – he just had to prove himself wrong. What the fuck was wrong with him?! What the hell did his mother gave him birth for? To watch her son humiliate himself in every way possible? What did he do to anger the higher powers?

Okay, that was a rhetorical question, he was an angry kid when he was small and a lot of people suffered from that, mostly poor Dadan and her gang and poor thugs at the Grey Terminal. On the other hand, they kind of started it, so he wasn't sure it should count. If anything, he was very mean to Luffy when he first met him. On the other hand, the kid was annoying as fuck, so it shouldn't count either.

After some serious thinking and calculation, Ace decided that no, he did not deserve this kind of punishment. Unless there was something super-awesome waiting to happen to him in the future and all this was sent to him to even things out. If so, he should humbly endure the hardships and wait for the good thing to happen. Finally finding a ray of sunshine among dark clouds, Ace sat up straight and sighed happily, feeling like a thousand years old sage who finally found inner peace.

"What's wrong with you?" Ace was brought back from his inner peace place by Nami, who sat down in front of him.

"Hm?" he looked at his friend with content smile on his face.

"You're starting to creep me out," Nami said with a frown. "One second you were as gloomy as Perona and the next you look as if you have a twelve course meal in front of you. You don't have borderline on top of narcolepsy, do you?"

"How did you know?" Ace laughed.

"I had my suspicions for a while, I just needed a confirmation," Nami laughed as well. "Now, jokes aside, what's up with you?"

"Nothing," Ace said, unsure if dating a male sempai should count as something wrong with him. "Just an early morning and a bad practice."

"And that thing in the corridor," Nami reminded him.

"Thank you, for bringing that up," Ace pouted. "And I just managed to erase it from my memory."

"Sorry?" Nami offered, leaning on his desk in such a way that Ace could literally hear his male classmates wish him to die a painful death. Speaking of painful deaths…

"Hey, I'm curious," Ace started, earning raised eyebrows from Nami. "You dated Marco-sempai some time ago."

"Yeah, why?"

"It's just… I kind of got on his bad side and I just want to know what kind of person is he," blatant lie. Not once did sempai get angry at him, despite everything that's happened since Monday.

"Well… What can I tell you?" Nami sighed, almost lying on top of his desk and looking out the window; Ace was sure that he just got cursed at least a hundred times. Maybe that's what's happening to him and not his 'balance of good and bad' theory. "He's… how should I put it? The best comparison would be a 'knight in shining armour'. He's warm, kind… A week-long fairy-tale." Nami gave Ace a nostalgic smile. "Still, the fairy-tales have to have an ending and it's always the same one."

"What do you mean?" he raised an eyebrow at her – so far his 'fairy-tale' was nothing but terrible.

"Well, at the end of the week he always says the same thing – 'I am sorry I couldn't fall in love with you'."

"How do you know he always says that?"

"I'm a girl and girls spend a lot of time gossiping," she looked at him as if he was stupid. "In this case – comparing experiences. It's almost identical," Nami sighed. "Another common thing was that he's never the one to initiate contact, no matter if it's just holding hands, a hug or a kiss."

"That's just wasteful." It came out before Ace could stop himself.

"One could think that, yes," Nami laughed. "Some girls were even stupid enough to try and force themselves on him."

"Where are they buried?" he laughed as well, because there was no way in hell something like that would work out with Marco-sempai.

"They are still alive, but they are afraid of having Marco anywhere near them. Heck if I know what he did to them," Nami looked at the teacher entering the classroom and, after ruffling Ace's hair (he angrily swatted her hand away, causing even more glares from his classmates), went to her seat.

Ace stared at the blackboard with a solemn expression on his face. There was a lot to think about. For example, if he ever happened to be stupid enough (which he probably was, despite his above average grades) to try to force himself on sempai… Wait, did he just admit that he could actually do that? 'That would be the peak of humiliation, if that was to happen,' he thought gloomily and shook his head – there was no way that would ever happen. Yeah, he could admit that sempai was hot, he'd have to be blind to state otherwise, but that would just be weird… Right? 'The fact that I kind of asked him out doesn't mean anything, right? I mean, we're both guys… On the other hand, why am I worried? Nami said he's not going to touch me and all I have to do is to survive the rest of the week and then I'll never ever do the same mistake again.'

Despite his somewhat optimistic thoughts, Ace could not get rid of the odd feeling in the pit of his stomach. Something was gnawing him from the inside, something he couldn't put his finger on. It wasn't hunger, he knew that sensation very well. It was more like he knew he did something bad, but no one reprimanded him for that. Like he knew it was a bad thing to do, but he still did it anyway and now his conscience was having a field day. 'But I didn't do anything!' Ace thought angrily.

(^_^)

Marco was staring his teacher down. It kind of helped that the guy was two heads shorter than him and looked like a hamster. The class was snickering at the difference in their appearances and was placing bets on who was right. Normally he would have been quiet, but he had a very, VERY bizarre morning and he didn't get enough sleep, which resulted in extremely short fuse. The class was waiting for Robin to come back with the right book from the library in order to solve the conflict.

Given that this was a history class, they expected Robin to know the answer right away, but she seemed to be having a bad day too and couldn't remember the exact dates for the battle of Stalingrad. The teacher was dead sure that it was between 23rd of August 1942 to 22nd of January 1943 and normally Marco didn't give a damn about a week and a half as long as he knew the correct answer, but today he just couldn't help it. It wasn't like he was a history prodigy like Robin, he just had this game at home which included a question on battle of Stalingrad and the answer clearly stated that it ended 2nd February 1943, not 22nd of January. Of course there was a possibility of it being incorrect, but he was fully prepared to apologise in case he was wrong. He just felt like arguing with someone, so he wasn't going to miss this golden opportunity.

Robin walked into the classroom with a book in her hand, using one of her fingers as a bookmark. She moved to stand between Marco and the teacher, holding the dramatic pause in best traditions of soap operas. Then she opened the book and, after nodding to herself, she said:

"On the 22d of January field marshal Paulus requested permission to surrender," she allowed the teacher to straighten himself proudly, before beating him down. "He was captured 31st of January. The battle of Stalingrad ended the 2nd February around four in the morning."

"What?" the teacher snatched the book from Robin's hands and started reading quickly; Marco was still standing in front of the class, his arms crossed on his chest and his foot tapping. After reading same lines a couple of times, the teacher finally spoke. "Well, it seems like I was wrong. Since Phoenix-san knows so much about it, how about he gives us a ten minute presentation about battle of Stalingrad this time next week?"

Marco's eyebrow twitched. He should have kept his mouth shut. He knew better and yet he just had to argue.

"Certainly," Marco said, glaring at the teacher. He went back to his seat feeling like punching a hole in a wall. When will he learn that he should keep his mouth shut at school? There was no way he'd pull off a decent presentation in history without Robin's help.

If anything, this proved the fact that the amount of functioning brain cells in his brain was swiftly declining. Speaking of the reason for that, he had to come up with a way to make Ace go all out on the training without losing control. Compared to Monday, today's training was a disappointment. It was even bigger disappointment because Marco looked forward towards sparring with Ace, who avoided the fight by all means possible. The only thing he could do to make it more obvious was to run away literally.

Marco tuned out the teacher completely as he concentrated on finding a way to get Monday's Ace out of normal Ace without any casualties. Monday's Ace was fun to spar with, normal Ace – not so much. Unfortunately, every possibility Marco came up with needed time and he wanted to fight now. Well, maybe not right now, but soon. Soon as in preferably next training, but earlier was fine too. He could start with talking to Ace about it, although he had no idea what to say. What could he say? 'I want to fight you so you're dead if you hold back ever again'? That sounded totally wrong…

Marco sighed, shifting his gaze to the history book in front of him. If he was to be honest with himself, sparring wasn't the only thing he wanted to do with Ace. This was a first for him – normally he was detached when he dated, but this time he had hard time keeping his head… Only this morning he wanted to climb into the bed to join Ace and he shouldn't even mention those damn pictures, because every time he remembered them… Idiot, that's what he was.

(^_^)

Ace considered himself a happy-go-lucky kind of guy who just went with the flow. That explained a lot in his life, including why he would agree to be Sabo's model. However, there were a couple of things people should never do unless they wanted to provoke him. Mostly that meant 'do not stand between Ace and the food', although several people could do that without fear of waking the animal sleeping within him. Lately, the list of people who could harmlessly do that increased by one person. That person was the only one who could make him stop eating by his presence alone. It didn't take a genius to figure out who that was and Nami (another person on that short list, which included Luffy, Sabo and Garp) was not stupid.

She blatantly stared at him with wide eyes and open mouth when he suddenly stopped eating his lunch as they sat in the cafeteria. At first Nami even put her palm on his forehead, in case he had a fever, but then she followed his gaze and saw the reason, who was buying coffee accompanied by Robin. When the reason noticed him and decided to walk over, Nami saw another thing anyone would have thought impossible – Ace tried to leave the food and desert the cafeteria, but was caught and forced to stay in his place.

"How are you doing?" Robin asked with a friendly smile.

"Fine," Ace answered tensely, eyeing sempai in case he had something to say about this morning's practice.

"Is that so? Lucky you then, Marco here got himself extra homework in history," she sat down on a free chair in front of them; sempai remained standing.

"What kind of extra homework? An essay?" Nami asked, curious.

"Ten-minute presentation on battle of Stalingrad for next Wednesday," Marco answered grumpily, he did not seem to like it at all.

"Look at the bright side – it could have been an essay," Ace said, trying to cheer up sempai.

"That's what I told him – presentations are easy. All he has to do is find some four minute material and drag it out to be ten," Robin nodded. "Plus I agreed to help him."

"Then why are you mad? You barely have anything to do," Ace looked at Marco with surprise.

"He's not mad about the work load, he's mad about the sole fact that he has to do it," Robin laughed.

"Oh…" Nami giggled. "You should not spend time with Ace, he's bad influence."

"Hey!" Ace exclaimed indignantly. Everybody just laughed at him, so he sighed and asked, remembering one annoying thing he had to do after school. "Anyone want to tag along to Dadan after school?"

"Sorry, I can't. I have to go to the museum - mom said they're getting a new exhibition," Robin smiled apologetically.

"Speaking of which, I completely forgot to kill Luffy for daring to say that she looked like me," Nami said with a scary smile on her face. "I'm sorry I will be busy after school too."

"No problem," Ace said; Nami was very scary sometimes.

"Marco should tag along, it'll be very educating for him," Robin said, her smile almost identical to Nami's.

"Eh?" Marco and Ace looked at Robin with the same expression on their faces – clearly doubting her mental health. That didn't pass Nami's attention either.

"Oh, I'm sure it will be very interesting for you, Marco-sempai," she said with a sly smile.

Ace cursed inwardly, regretting the day he became friends with those two. He finally understood why Zoro called Nami a witch. By the looks of it, Marco-sempai was doing the same thing.

"Fine, I'll go with you," sempai said, his whole look said 'do what you want, I don't care anymore'.

"Then after school you should go home and change into something you don't mind getting dirty," Robin said contently.

"Sure," Marco sighed, looking at Ace for help; Ace looked away, he knew he was being a coward, but there was no way they could win if Nami and Robin were their opponents. "Where do we meet then?"

"Take the bus to East Blue Dawn, it's three stops after Foosha Village," Nami answered as if it was she who had to take sempai to the Mt. Corvo.

"Actually," Ace spoke up, "it would be better if you came by my house just in case."

"Right, I forgot," Nami nodded. "It's better that way."

Sempai nodded hesitantly and Ace could not blame him – it sounded way too suspicious. If it was him, he would have thought twice before doing that. Thus, when they were on their way to the classroom, Ace texted sempai '**Sorry about that, u don't have to do this if u don't want to :)'**. The reply came surprisingly fast: '**I don't mind :) so I pick u up at ur house?**'

Ace sighed in relief when he read that because half of him hoped that sempai would tag along. He wasn't sure why half of him was that stupid – that trip will end with him being humiliated yet again for sure, - but that half of him was happy about the trip. Thus he typed: '**Yeah, will you find the way?'** and stared at his phone with anticipation. This reply was quick too '**I hope so :) you won't be asleep, right?'** Ace chuckled at that statement and texted '**That depends :D**'

'**On?**'

'**How slow u are XD**'

'**That depends on ur definition of slow**'

Ace smiled, typing '**Good one :) Let's say within two hours after school ends.**'

'**Works for me**'

'**Text me if u're lost XD**'

'**Hopefully I won't be**'

'**U got lost this morning :D'**

'**The street was stupid**'

'**U're not related to Zoro, are you?**'

'**Like hell I am, if it was him he'd be on the other side of the city XD**'

'**True enough :D**'

Ace had to put his phone away because the teacher was losing his patience and if he didn't do that he'd risk getting detention and his phone confiscated. That was the very last thing he needed right now. Plus that'd be very embarrassing to say the least. In a second he felt the phone vibrate in his pocket and his hands literally itched to get it out and read the message but he had to wait for the teacher to turn his back to the class.

Ace stared at the teacher trying to hypnotise him to turn his back to the class as his hand got the phone out of the pocket. Unfortunately, it seemed like the teacher was immune to hypnosis or Ace just sucked at hypnotising people, but it was about twenty minutes before he got his chance to read the message. When he unlocked the phone he understood that he had one brother too many. Plus that he'll probably be joining Nami after school and try to kill that idiot that wrote '**Ace I'm hungry**' to him.

* * *

**The fact that I'm puplishing this chapter is a miracle... I have two years worth of chemistry and biology to go through in the next two weeks and that's besided the university exams... Yeah, you don't need to tell me, I know I'm screwed. **

**Anyways, next chapter will be late. Again. (I'm so sorry) **

**Thanks for reviews, favourites and follows! Makes my day :)**

**~Rhe :)**


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